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官話

简官话 · 繁官話

Mandarin · pinyin guān huà

"officialese"
bureaucratic language
Mandarin

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Characters in this entry

官: guān · official, public servant
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

1–4 · guan1 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 · 2 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

gun1 waa2

Cantonese word readings for 官話. 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.

noun

Mandarin; Guanhua (group of Northern Chinese dialects including Putonghua (Standard Chinese))
bureaucratic gibberish; high-sounding but insincere words; officialese

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

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