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年代

Mandarin · pinyin nián dài

a decade of a century (e.g. the Sixties)
age
era
period
Classifier: 個 gè

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Characters in this entry

年: nián · year; new-years; person's age
代: dài · replace, replacement (of person or generation); era, generation

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

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Mandarin tones

2–4 · nian2 dai4

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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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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

nin4 doi6

Cantonese word readings for 年代. 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

age; era; period
number of years; year count
time (in general)
a decade of a century
year timeline; dating; chronology

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

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