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劫後餘生

简劫后余生 · 繁劫後餘生

Mandarin · pinyin jié hòu yú shēng

(idiom) to be a survivor of a calamity

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Characters in this entry

劫: jié · take by force, coerce; disaster
後: hòu · behind, rear, after; descendents
餘: Look up this written character
生: shēng · life, living, lifetime; birth
后: hòu · queen, empress, sovereign; (simp. for 後) behind, rear, after
余: yú · I, my, me; surname; surplus

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

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Mandarin tones

2–4–2–1 · jie2 hou4 yu2 sheng1

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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.

劫後餘生 · find source passages ↗ · 劫后余生 · find source passages ↗

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

(idiomatic) to survive a disaster; to outlive a calamity

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

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