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杞人憂天

简杞人忧天 · 繁杞人憂天

Mandarin · pinyin Qǐ rén yōu tiān

(lit.) like the man of 杞 Qǐ who feared the sky would fall (idiom)
(fig.) to entertain groundless fears

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Characters in this entry

杞: qǐ · willow; medlar tree; a small feudal state (Qi)
人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
憂: Look up this written character
天: tiān · sky, heaven; god, celestial
忧: yōu · sad, grieved; grief, melancholy

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

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Mandarin tones

3–2–1–1 · Qi3 ren2 you1 tian1

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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.

杞人憂天 · find source passages ↗ · 杞人忧天 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

gei2 jan4 jau1 tin1

Cantonese word readings for 杞人憂天. 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 have groundless fears

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

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