DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

有色無膽

简有色无胆 · 繁有色無膽

Mandarin · pinyin yǒu sè wú dǎn

to be perverse and suggestive towards the opposite sex, but shrinking back when provoked to act on it
to have perverted thoughts but no guts to actually do it
to be all talk and no action

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Characters in this entry

有: yǒu · have, own, possess; exist
色: sè · color, tint, hue, shade; form, body; beauty, desire for beauty; Kangxi radical 139
無: Look up this written character
膽: Look up this written character
无: wú · negative, no, not; Kangxi radical 71
胆: dǎn · gall bladder; bravery, courage

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

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Mandarin tones

3–4–2–3 · you3 se4 wu2 dan3

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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.

有色無膽 · find source passages ↗ · 有色无胆 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jau5 sik1 mou4 daam2

Cantonese word readings for 有色無膽. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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