得意洋洋

Mandarin · pinyin dé yì yáng yáng

Meanings

  1. joyfully satisfied
  2. to be immensely proud of oneself
  3. proudly
  4. an air of complacency
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

得
dé · obtain, get, gain, acquire
意
yì · thought, idea, opinion; think
洋
yáng · ocean, sea; foreign; western
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

2–4–2–2 · de2 yi4 yang2 yang2

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

3character links1same-tone record
Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

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.

得意洋洋 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

dak1 ji3 joeng4 joeng4

Cantonese word readings for 得意洋洋. 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.

phrase

  1. (idiomatic) smug; puffed up

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

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

得意洋洋 · de2 yi4 yang2 yang2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 40,283
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record得意洋洋 得意洋洋 [de2 yi4 yang2 yang2] /joyfully satisfied/to be immensely proud of oneself/proudly/an air of complacency/