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朋友

Mandarin · pinyin péng you

friend
Classifier: 個 gè, 位 wèi

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Characters in this entry

朋: péng · friend, pal, acquaintance
友: yǒu · friend, companion; fraternity

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

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Mandarin tones

2–5 · peng2 you5

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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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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

pang4 jau5

Cantonese word readings for 朋友. 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

friend (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 位 m c)
friend (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 位 m c) — (Hong Kong Cantonese) Term of address to a South Asian person.
(euphemistic) boyfriend or girlfriend; partner

noun

(archaic) large number of retainers
(archaic, Ming dynasty) designation given by government bureaucrats to Confucian students

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

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