大千世界

Mandarin · pinyin dà qiān shì jiè

Meanings

  1. great wide world
  2. marvelously diverse world
  3. (Buddhism) cosmos (abbr. for 三千大千世界 sān qiān dà qiān shì jiè)
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Characters in this entry

大
dà · big, great, vast, large, high
千
qiān · thousand; many, numerous; very; (Cant.) a cheater, swindler
世
shì · generation; world; era
界
jiè · boundary, limit; domain; society; the world
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

4–1–4–4 · da4 qian1 shi4 jie4

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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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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

noun

  1. (Buddhism) trichiliocosm (billion-fold universe)
  2. (by extension) the boundless universe

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

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

大千世界 · da4 qian1 shi4 jie4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 27,791
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record大千世界 大千世界 [da4 qian1 shi4 jie4] /great wide world/marvelously diverse world/(Buddhism) cosmos (abbr. for 三千大千世界[san1 qian1 da4 qian1 shi4 jie4])/