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寄人籬下

简寄人篱下 · 繁寄人籬下

Mandarin · pinyin jì rén lí xià

to lodge under another person's roof (idiom); to live relying on sb else's charity

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Characters in this entry

寄: jì · send, transmit, mail; rely on
人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
籬: Look up this written character
下: xià · under, underneath, below; down; inferior; bring down
篱: lí · bamboo or wooden fence; hedge

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

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Mandarin tones

4–2–2–4 · ji4 ren2 li2 xia4

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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.

寄人籬下 · find source passages ↗ · 寄人篱下 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

gei3 jan4 lei4 haa6

Cantonese word readings for 寄人籬下. 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.

phrase

(idiomatic) to depend on others, thus not being self-reliant

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

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