DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

別人牽驢你拔橛子

简别人牵驴你拔橛子 · 繁別人牽驢你拔橛子

Mandarin · pinyin bié ren qiān lǘ nǐ bá jué zi

lit. someone else stole the donkey; you only pulled up the stake it was tethered to (idiom)
fig. you're the least culpable, but you're the one who gets the blame

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Characters in this entry

別: Look up this written character
人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
牽: Look up this written character
驢: Look up this written character
你: nǐ · you, second person pronoun
拔: bá · uproot, pull out
橛: jué · a post, a stake; an axle
子: zǐ · offspring, child; fruit, seed of; first earthly branch
别: bié · separate, other; do not
牵: qiān · drag, pull, lead by hand
驴: lǘ · donkey, ass

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

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Mandarin tones

2–5–1–2–3–2–2–5 · bie2 ren5 qian1 lu:2 ni3 ba2 jue2 zi5

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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.

別人牽驢你拔橛子 · find source passages ↗ · 别人牵驴你拔橛子 · find source passages ↗

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