拍烏蠅
简 拍乌蝇 · 繁 拍烏蠅Meanings
- (adj.) to describe a place where the business is very quiet
- slow, with hardly any customers; literally 'squatting flies to kill time'.
About these definitions
Source definition segments, in their original order. Characters a definition cites are shown without their Mandarin pinyin; classifier lists that CC-Canto copied from CC-CEDICT are marked Mandarin. The community dictionary is not independently verified by zimai.
Reading & tones
Schematic citation-tone diagrams from the source numbers. These are not recordings or predictions of connected speech.
Tone difference from Unihan
- 蠅 is read jing1 here; Unihan’s citation reading is jing4. Same syllable, different tone across these source readings.
Computed by zimai: each syllable of the CC-Canto word reading is compared with Unihan 17.0.0 kCantonese for its character. The comparison does not say why a reading differs (a changed tone, 變音, a reading tied to one meaning, or a source variant).
Same syllable, six tones
Characters whose customary Unihan reading (kCantonese) is this syllable in each tone, chosen as in the tone atlas (2013 standard level, then the number of CC-CEDICT words they form), with CC-Canto 2017's meaning for that reading; a dash means no catalogue character has that reading. Checked syllables (-p, -t, -k) normally carry tones 1, 3 and 6. Character readings, not word readings; no frequency implied.
Written characters
Both source spellings are represented. Written membership is not an etymological or semantic claim.
Mandarin comparison · separate source entries
CC-Canto includes this pinyin reference: pai1 wu1 ying2. It does not establish a Mandarin word with the same meaning.
Look up this spelling in the Mandarin dictionary ↗Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 2 senses · 1 Cantonese reading
Rime Cantonese 粵拼
paak3 wu1 jing1
Cantonese word readings for 拍烏蠅. 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.
verb
- (literally) to swat flies (with a flyswatter)
- (figurative, of business, traffic, etc.) to be slack (to the extent that clerks can only swat flies in the shop); to be sluggish; to be quiet
Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack