DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

怨天尤人

Mandarin · pinyin yuàn tiān yóu rén

(idiom) to blame the gods and accuse others

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

怨: yuàn · hatred, enmity, resentment
天: tiān · sky, heaven; god, celestial
尤: yóu · especially, particularly
人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

4–1–2–2 · yuan4 tian1 you2 ren2

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

4character links

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.

怨天尤人 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jyun3 tin1 jau4 jan4

Cantonese word readings for 怨天尤人. 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

(idiomatic) to blame god and man; to blame everyone and everything but oneself

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

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