吃大鍋飯

简 吃大锅饭 · 繁 吃大鍋飯
Mandarin · pinyin chī dà guō fàn

Meanings

  1. lit. to eat from the common pot (idiom)
  2. fig. to be rewarded the same, regardless of performance
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Characters in this entry

吃
chī · eat; drink; suffer, endure, bear
大
dà · big, great, vast, large, high
鍋
Look up this written character
飯
fàn · cooked rice; food; meal
锅
guō · cooking-pot, saucepan
饭
fàn · cooked rice; food, meal
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–4–1–4 · chi1 da4 guo1 fan4

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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

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

verb

  1. (idiomatic, figurative, Mainland China) to get the same reward regardless of one’s performance in work

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

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

吃大鍋飯 · chi1 da4 guo1 fan4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 19,574
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record吃大鍋飯 吃大锅饭 [chi1 da4 guo1 fan4] /lit. to eat from the common pot (idiom)/fig. to be rewarded the same, regardless of performance/