光說不練

简 光说不练 · 繁 光說不練
Mandarin · pinyin guāng shuō bù liàn

Meanings

  1. all talk and no action (idiom)
  2. to preach what one does not practice
  3. same as 光說不做 guāng shuō bù zuò
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Characters in this entry

光
guāng · light, brilliant, shine; only
說
shuō · speak, say, talk; scold, upbraid
不
bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
練
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说
shuō · speak, say, talk; scold, upbraid
练
liàn · to practice, drill, exercise, train
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–1–4–4 · guang1 shuo1 bu4 lian4

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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.

光說不練 · find source passages ↗ · 光说不练 · find source passages ↗

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光說不練 · guang1 shuo1 bu4 lian4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 10,727
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record光說不練 光说不练 [guang1 shuo1 bu4 lian4] /all talk and no action (idiom)/to preach what one does not practice/same as 光說不做|光说不做[guang1 shuo1 bu4 zuo4]/