冰炭不相容

Mandarin · pinyin bīng tàn bù xiāng róng

Meanings

  1. as incompatible or irreconcilable as ice and hot coals
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Characters in this entry

冰
bīng · ice; ice-cold
炭
tàn · charcoal; coal; carbon
不
bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
相
xiāng · mutual, reciprocal, each other
容
róng · looks, appearance; figure, form
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–4–4–1–2 · bing1 tan4 bu4 xiang1 rong2

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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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冰炭不相容 · bing1 tan4 bu4 xiang1 rong2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 12,682
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record冰炭不相容 冰炭不相容 [bing1 tan4 bu4 xiang1 rong2] /as incompatible or irreconcilable as ice and hot coals/