DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

天下大亂

简天下大乱 · 繁天下大亂

Mandarin · pinyin tiān xià dà luàn

the whole country in rebellion

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

天: tiān · sky, heaven; god, celestial
下: xià · under, underneath, below; down; inferior; bring down
大: dà · big, great, vast, large, high
亂: Look up this written character
乱: luàn · confusion, state of chaos, revolt

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

1–4–4–4 · tian1 xia4 da4 luan4

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

4character links

Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗

Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

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.

天下大亂 · find source passages ↗ · 天下大乱 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

phrase

(idiomatic) the world is in chaos

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

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