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怒髮衝冠

简怒发冲冠 · 繁怒髮衝冠

Mandarin · pinyin nù fà chōng guān

lit. hair stands up in anger and tips off one's hat (idiom)
fig. seething in anger
raise one's hackles

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Characters in this entry

怒: nù · anger, rage, passion; angry
髮: fà · fǎ · hair
衝: Look up this written character
冠: guān · cap, crown, headgear
发: fā · issue, dispatch, send out; hair
冲: chōng · soar; pour boiling water over

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

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Mandarin tones

4–4–1–1 · nu4 fa4 chong1 guan1

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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.

怒髮衝冠 · find source passages ↗ · 怒发冲冠 · find source passages ↗

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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 be furious

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

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