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便宜行事

Mandarin · pinyin biàn yí xíng shì

act at one's discretion
act as one sees fit

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Characters in this entry

便: biàn · convenience, ease; expedient
宜: yí · suitable, right, fitting, proper
行: xíng · go; walk; move, travel; circulate; Kangxi radical 144
事: shì · affair, matter, business; to serve; accident, incident

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

4–2–2–4 · bian4 yi2 xing2 shi4

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

bin6 ji4 hang4 si6

Cantonese word readings for 便宜行事. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

(idiomatic) to act at one's discretion

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

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