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千字文

Mandarin · pinyin Qiān zì wén

Thousand Character Classic, 6th century poem used as a traditional reading primer

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Characters in this entry

千: qiān · thousand; many, numerous; very; (Cant.) a cheater, swindler
字: zì · letter, character, word
文: wén · literature, culture, writing

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

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Mandarin tones

1–4–2 · Qian1 zi4 wen2

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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.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

cin1 zi6 man4

Cantonese word readings for 千字文. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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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.

name

Thousand Character Classic (poem used as a primer for teaching Chinese characters to children from the sixth century onward)

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

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack