DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

刻鵠類鶩

简刻鹄类鹜 · 繁刻鵠類鶩

Mandarin · pinyin kè hú lèi wù

to aim to carve a swan and get a semblance of a duck (idiom)
to fail utterly in trying to copy something
to get a reasonably good, if not perfect, result

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Characters in this entry

刻: kè · carve, engrave; quarter hour
鵠: Look up this written character
類: Look up this written character
鶩: Look up this written character
鹄: gǔ · target
类: lèi · class, group, kind, category
鹜: wù · duck

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

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Mandarin tones

4–2–4–4 · ke4 hu2 lei4 wu4

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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.

刻鵠類鶩 · find source passages ↗ · 刻鹄类鹜 · find source passages ↗

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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

hak1 huk6 leoi6 mou6

Cantonese word readings for 刻鵠類鶩. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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