大人不記小人過

简 大人不记小人过 · 繁 大人不記小人過
Mandarin · pinyin dà rén bù jì xiǎo rén guò

Meanings

  1. a person of great moral stature does not remember the offenses committed by one of low moral stature
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Characters in this entry

大
dà · big, great, vast, large, high
人
rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
不
bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
記
jì · record; keep in mind, remember
小
xiǎo · small, tiny, insignificant
過
guò · pass, pass through, go across
记
jì · record; keep in mind, remember
过
guò · pass, pass through, go across
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

4–2–4–4–3–2–4 · da4 ren2 bu4 ji4 xiao3 ren2 guo4

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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.

大人不記小人過 · find source passages ↗ · 大人不记小人过 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

daai6 jan4 bat1 gei3 siu2 jan4 gwo3

Cantonese word readings for 大人不記小人過. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

proverb

  1. It is best to forgive and forget.

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

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

大人不記小人過 · da4 ren2 bu4 ji4 xiao3 ren2 guo4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 27,708
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record大人不記小人過 大人不记小人过 [da4 ren2 bu4 ji4 xiao3 ren2 guo4] /a person of great moral stature does not remember the offenses committed by one of low moral stature/