DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

大炮打蚊子

Mandarin · pinyin dà pào dǎ wén zi

cannon fire to hit a mosquito
to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut

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Characters in this entry

大: dà · big, great, vast, large, high
炮: pào · large gun, cannon; artillery
打: dǎ · strike, hit, beat; fight; attack
蚊: wén · mosquito; gnat
子: zǐ · offspring, child; fruit, seed of; first earthly branch

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

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Mandarin tones

4–4–3–2–5 · da4 pao4 da3 wen2 zi5

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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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