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天作之合

Mandarin · pinyin tiān zuò zhī hé

a match made in heaven (idiom)

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Characters in this entry

天: tiān · sky, heaven; god, celestial
作: zuò · make; work; compose, write; act, perform
之: zhī · marks preceding phrase as modifier of following phrase; it, him her, them; go to
合: hé · combine, unite, join; gather

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

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Mandarin tones

1–4–1–2 · tian1 zuo4 zhi1 he2

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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

tin1 zok3 zi1 hap6

Cantonese word readings for 天作之合. 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) heaven-made match; a match made in heaven

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

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