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哀鴻遍野

简哀鸿遍野 · 繁哀鴻遍野

Mandarin · pinyin āi hóng biàn yě

lit. plaintive whine of geese (idiom); fig. land swarming with disaster victims
starving people fill the land

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Characters in this entry

哀: āi · sad, mournful, pitiful; pity
鴻: Look up this written character
遍: biàn · everywhere, all over, throughout
野: yě · open country, field; wilderness
鸿: hóng · species of wild swan; vast

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

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Mandarin tones

1–2–4–3 · ai1 hong2 bian4 ye3

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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.

哀鴻遍野 · find source passages ↗ · 哀鸿遍野 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

oi1 hung4 pin3 je5

Cantonese word readings for 哀鴻遍野. 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) a land of wailing and despair; land swarming with disaster victims; disaster victims moaning everywhere

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

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