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套話

简套话 · 繁套話

Mandarin · pinyin tào huà

polite phrase; conventional greetings
cliché
to try to worm facts out of sb

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Characters in this entry

套: tào · case, cover, wrapper, envelope
話: huà · speech, talk, language; dialect
话: huà · speech, talk, language; dialect

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

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Mandarin tones

4–4 · tao4 hua4

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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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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

noun

polite formula; conventionality; conventionalism
formulaic language; stereotyped expression; cliché

verb

to coax a secret from (or out of) someone; to trick someone into telling the truth

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

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