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暴殄天物

Mandarin · pinyin bào tiǎn tiān wù

to waste natural resources recklessly
not to know how to use things sparingly

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Characters in this entry

暴: bào · violent, brutal, tyrannical
殄: tiǎn · to end; to exterminate
天: tiān · sky, heaven; god, celestial
物: wù · thing, substance, creature

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

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Mandarin tones

4–3–1–4 · bao4 tian3 tian1 wu4

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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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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

bou6 tin5 tin1 mat6

Cantonese word readings for 暴殄天物. 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.

phrase

(idiomatic) to recklessly waste natural products (or things in general)

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

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