公而忘私

Mandarin · pinyin gōng ér wàng sī

Meanings

  1. for the common good and forgetting personal interests (idiom); to behave altruistically
  2. selfless
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Characters in this entry

公
gōng · fair, equitable; public; duke
而
ér · and; and then; and yet; but; Kangxi radical 126
忘
wàng · forget; neglect; miss, omit
私
sī · private, personal; secret
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–2–4–1 · gong1 er2 wang4 si1

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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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Compare dictionary sources 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

gung1 ji4 mong4 si1

Cantonese word readings for 公而忘私. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

公而忘私 · gong1 er2 wang4 si1
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 11,969
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record公而忘私 公而忘私 [gong1 er2 wang4 si1] /for the common good and forgetting personal interests (idiom); to behave altruistically/selfless/