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好吃懶做

简好吃懒做 · 繁好吃懶做

Mandarin · pinyin hào chī lǎn zuò

happy to partake but not prepared to do any work (idiom)
all take and no give

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Characters in this entry

好: hǎo · good, excellent, fine; well
吃: chī · eat; drink; suffer, endure, bear
懶: Look up this written character
做: zuò · work, make; act
懒: lǎn · lazy, languid, listless

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

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Mandarin tones

4–1–3–4 · hao4 chi1 lan3 zuo4

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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.

好吃懶做 · find source passages ↗ · 好吃懒做 · find source passages ↗

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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 fond of eating and averse to work; to be piggish

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

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