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倒懸

简倒悬 · 繁倒懸

Mandarin · pinyin dào xuán

lit. to hang upside down
fig. in dire straits

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Characters in this entry

倒: dào · fall over; lie down; take turns
懸: Look up this written character
悬: xuán · hang, suspend, hoist; be hung

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

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Mandarin tones

4–2 · dao4 xuan2

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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.

倒懸 · find source passages ↗ · 倒悬 · find source passages ↗

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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

dou3 jyun4

Cantonese word readings for 倒懸. 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.

verb

to hang upside down
(literary, figurative) to be in dire straits; to be in a precarious position

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

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