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打草驚蛇

简打草惊蛇 · 繁打草驚蛇

Mandarin · pinyin dǎ cǎo jīng shé

lit. beat the grass to scare the snake (idiom)
fig. to inadvertently alert an enemy
to punish sb as a warning to others

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Characters in this entry

打: dǎ · strike, hit, beat; fight; attack
草: cǎo · grass, straw, thatch, herbs
驚: Look up this written character
蛇: shé · snake
惊: jīng · frighten, surprise, startle

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

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Mandarin tones

3–3–1–2 · da3 cao3 jing1 she2

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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.

打草驚蛇 · find source passages ↗ · 打草惊蛇 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

daa2 cou2 ging1 se4

Cantonese word readings for 打草驚蛇. 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.

phrase

(idiomatic) to give away your position through rash actions; to alert someone of your presence unwittingly

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

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