天職

简 天职 · 繁 天職
Mandarin · pinyin tiān zhí

Meanings

  1. vocation
  2. duty
  3. mission in life
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Characters in this entry

天
tiān · sky, heaven; god, celestial
職
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职
zhí · duty, profession; office, post
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–2 · tian1 zhi2

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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.

天職 · find source passages ↗ · 天职 · find source passages ↗

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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

tin1 zik1

Cantonese word readings for 天職. 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.

noun

  1. calling; vocation (occupation for which a person is suited); mission in life
  2. one's duty
  3. (archaic) duty endowed by the Heavens

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

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