DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

孤掌難鳴

简孤掌难鸣 · 繁孤掌難鳴

Mandarin · pinyin gū zhǎng nán míng

It's hard to clap with only one hand.
It takes two to tango
It's difficult to achieve anything without support.

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

孤: gū · orphan, fatherless; solitary
掌: zhǎng · palm of hand, sole of foot, paw
難: Look up this written character
鳴: Look up this written character
难: nán · difficult, arduous, hard; unable
鸣: míng · cry of bird or animal; make sound

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

1–3–2–2 · gu1 zhang3 nan2 ming2

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.

孤掌難鳴 · find source passages ↗ · 孤掌难鸣 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

gu1 zoeng2 naan4 ming4

Cantonese word readings for 孤掌難鳴. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

phrase

(idiomatic) It is hard to succeed without support.

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

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