DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

打落水狗

Mandarin · pinyin dǎ luò shuǐ gǒu

lit. to beat a drowning dog (idiom)
fig. to pulverize an (already defeated) enemy
to hit sb when he's down

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Characters in this entry

打: dǎ · strike, hit, beat; fight; attack
落: luò · fall, drop; net income, surplus
水: shuǐ · water, liquid, lotion, juice
狗: gǒu · dog, Canis familiaris

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

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Mandarin tones

3–4–3–3 · da3 luo4 shui3 gou3

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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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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

daa2 lok6 seoi2 gau2

Cantonese word readings for 打落水狗. 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 hit an enemy when he is down or defeated

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

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