抹一鼻子灰

Mandarin · pinyin mǒ yī bí zi huī

Meanings

  1. lit. to rub one's nose with dust
  2. to suffer a snub
  3. to meet with a rebuff
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Characters in this entry

抹
mǒ · smear, apply, wipe off, erase
一
yī · one; a, an; alone
鼻
bí · nose; first; Kangxi radical 209
子
zǐ · offspring, child; fruit, seed of; first earthly branch
灰
huī · ashes; dust; lime, mortar
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

3–1–2–5–1 · mo3 yi1 bi2 zi5 hui1

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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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抹一鼻子灰 · mo3 yi1 bi2 zi5 hui1
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 45,871
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record抹一鼻子灰 抹一鼻子灰 [mo3 yi1 bi2 zi5 hui1] /lit. to rub one's nose with dust/to suffer a snub/to meet with a rebuff/