東方不亮西方亮

简 东方不亮西方亮 · 繁 東方不亮西方亮
Mandarin · pinyin dōng fāng bù liàng xī fāng liàng

Meanings

  1. if it isn't bright in the east, it'll be bright in the west (idiom)
  2. if something doesn't work here, it might work somewhere else
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Characters in this entry

東
dōng · east, eastern, eastward
方
fāng · a square, rectangle; a region; local
不
bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
亮
liàng · bright, brilliant, radiant, light
西
xī · west(ern); westward; occident; Kangxi radical 146
东
dōng · east, eastern, eastward
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–1–4–4–1–1–4 · dong1 fang1 bu4 liang4 xi1 fang1 liang4

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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.

東方不亮西方亮 · find source passages ↗ · 东方不亮西方亮 · find source passages ↗

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東方不亮西方亮 · dong1 fang1 bu4 liang4 xi1 fang1 liang4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 56,375
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record東方不亮西方亮 东方不亮西方亮 [dong1 fang1 bu4 liang4 xi1 fang1 liang4] /if it isn't bright in the east, it'll be bright in the west (idiom)/if something doesn't work here, it might work somewhere else/