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敷衍了事

Mandarin · pinyin fū yǎn liǎo shì

(idiom) to do things half-heartedly; to merely go through the motions

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Characters in this entry

敷: fū · spread, diffuse; apply, paint
衍: yǎn · overflow, spill over, spread out
了: le · to finish; particle of completed action
事: shì · affair, matter, business; to serve; accident, incident

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

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Mandarin tones

1–3–3–4 · fu1 yan3 liao3 shi4

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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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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

(idiomatic) to work halfheartedly; to gloss things over; to go through the motions

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

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