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敲門磚

简敲门砖 · 繁敲門磚

Mandarin · pinyin qiāo mén zhuān

lit. a brick as a door knocker (idiom); fig. a temporary expedient
to use sb as a stepping stone to fortune

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Characters in this entry

敲: qiāo · strike, beat, pound, hammer; rap
門: mén · gate, door, entrance, opening; Kangxi radical 169
磚: Look up this written character
门: mén · gate, door, entrance, opening
砖: zhuān · tile, brick

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

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Mandarin tones

1–2–1 · qiao1 men2 zhuan1

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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.

敲門磚 · find source passages ↗ · 敲门砖 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

haau1 mun4 zyun1

Cantonese word readings for 敲門磚. 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.

noun

stepping stone to success

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

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