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好大喜功

Mandarin · pinyin hào dà xǐ gōng

to rejoice in grandiose deeds
to strive to achieve extraordinary things

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Characters in this entry

好: hǎo · good, excellent, fine; well
大: dà · big, great, vast, large, high
喜: xǐ · like, love, enjoy; joyful thing
功: gōng · achievement, merit, good result

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

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Mandarin tones

4–4–3–1 · hao4 da4 xi3 gong1

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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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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

phrase

(idiomatic) to crave greatness and success; to rejoice in grandiose deeds

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

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