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棒打鴛鴦

简棒打鸳鸯 · 繁棒打鴛鴦

Mandarin · pinyin bàng dǎ yuān yāng

(idiom) to cruelly separate lovers (esp. by family or societal pressure); to forcibly break up a couple against their will

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Characters in this entry

棒: bàng · stick, club, truncheon; hit
打: dǎ · strike, hit, beat; fight; attack
鴛: Look up this written character
鴦: Look up this written character
鸳: yuān · male mandarin duck (Aix galericulata)
鸯: yāng · female mandarin duck (Aix galericulata)

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

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Mandarin tones

4–3–1–1 · bang4 da3 yuan1 yang1

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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.

棒打鴛鴦 · find source passages ↗ · 棒打鸳鸯 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

paang5 daa2 jyun1 joeng1

Cantonese word readings for 棒打鴛鴦. 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

(figurative) to forcefully break up an affectionate couple

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

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