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千辛萬苦

简千辛万苦 · 繁千辛萬苦

Mandarin · pinyin qiān xīn wàn kǔ

to suffer untold hardships (idiom); trials and tribulations
with difficulty
after some effort

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Characters in this entry

千: qiān · thousand; many, numerous; very; (Cant.) a cheater, swindler
辛: xīn · bitter; toilsome, laborious; 8th heavenly stem; Kangxi radical 160
萬: Look up this written character
苦: kǔ · bitter; hardship, suffering
万: wàn · mò · ten thousand; innumerable

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

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Mandarin tones

1–1–4–3 · qian1 xin1 wan4 ku3

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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.

千辛萬苦 · find source passages ↗ · 千辛万苦 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

cin1 san1 maan6 fu2

Cantonese word readings for 千辛萬苦. 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.

phrase

(idiomatic) suffering untold hardships; trials and tribulations

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

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