小心駛得萬年船

简 小心驶得万年船 · 繁 小心駛得萬年船
Cantonese · source Jyutpingsiu2 sam1 sai2 dak1 maan6 nin4 syun4

Meanings

  1. caution is the parent of safety, it is better to be safe than sorry
About these definitions

Source definition segments, in their original order. Characters a definition cites are shown without their Mandarin pinyin; classifier lists that CC-Canto copied from CC-CEDICT are marked Mandarin. The community dictionary is not independently verified by zimai.

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Reading & tones

Schematic citation-tone diagrams from the source numbers. These are not recordings or predictions of connected speech.

Same syllable, six tones

dak德dak1virtuedak2—dak3—dak4—dak5—特dak6special
ninnin1—nin2—nin3—年nin4碾nin5stone rollernin6—

Characters whose customary Unihan reading (kCantonese) is this syllable in each tone, chosen as in the tone atlas (2013 standard level, then the number of CC-CEDICT words they form), with CC-Canto 2017's meaning for that reading; a dash means no catalogue character has that reading. Checked syllables (-p, -t, -k) normally carry tones 1, 3 and 6. Character readings, not word readings; no frequency implied.

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Written characters

Both source spellings are represented. Written membership is not an etymological or semantic claim.

Cantonese characters and the Mandarin bridge ↗

Mandarin comparison · separate source entries

CC-Canto includes this pinyin reference: xiao3 xin5 shi3 de5 wan4 nian2 chuan2. It does not establish a Mandarin word with the same meaning.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

siu2 sam1 sai2 dak1 maan6 nin4 syun4

Cantonese word readings for 小心駛得萬年船. 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.

proverb

  1. better safe than sorry

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

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

CC-Canto · Pleco Inc. · edition 2017-02-02
Source line 6,428 · Original publisher · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Edition & transformations
Exact source record & identity小心駛得萬年船 小心驶得万年船 [xiao3 xin5 shi3 de5 wan4 nian2 chuan2] {siu2 sam1 sai2 dak1 maan6 nin4 syun4} /caution is the parent of safety, it is better to be safe than sorry/

SHA-256: 773ced7d02a328f8e88c107494070ec34cefdfa86331efdff548914ab27c4d66