日暮途窮

简 日暮途穷 · 繁 日暮途窮
Mandarin · pinyin rì mù tú qióng

Meanings

  1. sunset, the end of the road (idiom); in terminal decline
  2. at a dead end
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Characters in this entry

日
rì · sun; day; daytime
暮
mù · evening, dusk, sunset; ending
途
tú · way, road, path, journey; course
窮
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穷
qióng · poor, destitute, impoverished
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

4–4–2–2 · ri4 mu4 tu2 qiong2

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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.

日暮途窮 · find source passages ↗ · 日暮途穷 · find source passages ↗

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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

  1. (idiomatic) to be in a very desperate situation and close to perishing

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

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

日暮途窮 · ri4 mu4 tu2 qiong2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 52,641
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record日暮途窮 日暮途穷 [ri4 mu4 tu2 qiong2] /sunset, the end of the road (idiom); in terminal decline/at a dead end/