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守夜

Mandarin · pinyin shǒu yè

to be on all-night duty
to be on night watch
to keep a vigil

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Characters in this entry

守: shǒu · defend, protect, guard, conserve
夜: yè · night, dark; in night; by night

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

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Mandarin tones

3–4 · shou3 ye4

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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 · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

sau2 je2

Cantonese word readings for 守夜. 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.

verb

(verb-object) to perform night watch
(verb-object) to hold a vigil
(verb-object) to stay up at night

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

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