DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT
吃水不忘掘井人
Mandarin · pinyin chī shuǐ bù wàng jué jǐng rén
Meanings
- Drinking the water of a well, one should never forget who dug it. (idiom)
Characters in this entry
- 吃
- chī · eat; drink; suffer, endure, bear
- 水
- shuǐ · water, liquid, lotion, juice
- 不
- bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
- 忘
- wàng · forget; neglect; miss, omit
- 掘
- jué · dig, excavate; excavate cave
- 井
- jǐng · well, mine shaft, pit; surname; 22nd lunar mansion, determinative star μ Geminorum (Tejat); hexagram ䷯
- 人
- rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
Explore the spelling
Mandarin tones
1–3–4–4–2–3–2 · chi1 shui3 bu4 wang4 jue2 jing3 ren2
Compare attested words with these syllables ↗Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.
Connected dictionary
7character links
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.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.
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.
phrase
- (alt-of, alternative, idiomatic) alternative form of 吃水不忘挖井人 (chīshuǐ bù wàng wājǐng rén, “One should remember to be grateful to the people who made one's good fortune possible.”)
Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack