樹挪死,人挪活

简 树挪死,人挪活 · 繁 樹挪死,人挪活
Mandarin · pinyin shù nuó sǐ , rén nuó huó

Meanings

  1. lit. if moved to a new location, a tree will die, but a person will live (idiom)
  2. fig. human beings, unlike trees, thrive on change
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Characters in this entry

樹
shù · tree; plant; set up, establish
挪
nuó · move, shift on one side
死
sǐ · die; dead; death
人
rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
活
huó · live, exist, survive; lively
树
shù · tree; plant; set up, establish
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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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.

樹挪死,人挪活 · find source passages ↗ · 树挪死,人挪活 · find source passages ↗

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樹挪死,人挪活 · shu4 nuo2 si3 , ren2 nuo2 huo2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 59,344
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record樹挪死,人挪活 树挪死,人挪活 [shu4 nuo2 si3 , ren2 nuo2 huo2] /lit. if moved to a new location, a tree will die, but a person will live (idiom)/fig. human beings, unlike trees, thrive on change/