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半死不活

Mandarin · pinyin bàn sǐ bù huó

(idiom) half-dead; barely alive
(idiom) listless

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Characters in this entry

半: bàn · half
死: sǐ · die; dead; death
不: bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
活: huó · live, exist, survive; lively

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

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Mandarin tones

4–3–4–2 · ban4 si3 bu4 huo2

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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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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

phrase

(idiomatic) halfdead; more dead than alive

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

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