DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

天寒地凍

简天寒地冻 · 繁天寒地凍

Mandarin · pinyin tiān hán dì dòng

(idiom) bitterly cold; frigid

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

天: tiān · sky, heaven; god, celestial
寒: hán · cold, wintry, chilly
地: de · dì · earth; soil, ground; region
凍: Look up this written character
冻: dòng · freeze; cold, congeal; jelly

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

1–2–4–4 · tian1 han2 di4 dong4

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.

天寒地凍 · find source passages ↗ · 天寒地冻 · 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) to be very cold

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

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