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支吾

Mandarin · pinyin zhī wú#

to resist
to deal with

Mandarin · pinyin zhī wu#

to respond evasively or vaguely
to elude
to stall

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Characters in this entry

支: zhī · disperse, pay; support; branch
吾: wú · i, my, our; resist, impede

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

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Mandarin tones

1–2 · zhi1 wu2

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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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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

zi1 ng4

Cantonese word readings for 支吾. 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.

verb

to falter; to prevaricate; to equivocate
(archaic) to deal with a person just for the occasion
(archaic) to prop up; to support
(archaic) to resist; to defy; to oppose
(archaic) to handle
(archaic) to divert oneself from loneliness
(archaic) to hesitate

adj

(archaic) in a predicament

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

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