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大不如前

Mandarin · pinyin dà bù rú qián

a lot worse than it used to be

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Characters in this entry

大: dà · big, great, vast, large, high
不: bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
如: rú · if, supposing; as if; like, as
前: qián · in front, forward; preceding

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

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Mandarin tones

4–4–2–2 · da4 bu4 ru2 qian2

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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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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

daai6 bat1 jyu4 cin4

Cantonese word readings for 大不如前. 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 be much worse than it was before

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

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