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咬文嚼字

Mandarin · pinyin yǎo wén jiáo zì

to bite words and chew characters (idiom); punctilious about minutiae of wording

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Characters in this entry

咬: yǎo · bite, gnaw
文: wén · literature, culture, writing
嚼: jué · prattle, be glib
字: zì · letter, character, word

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

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Mandarin tones

3–2–2–4 · yao3 wen2 jiao2 zi4

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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

ngaau5 man4 zoek3 zi6

Cantonese word readings for 咬文嚼字. 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) to bite on phrases and chew on characters; to pay excessive attention to wording and choice of characters; to nitpick like a grammar Nazi; to talk pedantically

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

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