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步武

Mandarin · pinyin bù wǔ

to walk in someone's steps
to follow in someone's footsteps (literary)
a step (literary)

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Characters in this entry

步: bù · step, pace; walk, stroll
武: wǔ · military; martial, warlike

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

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Mandarin tones

4–3 · bu4 wu3

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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.

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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

(literary) very short distance

verb

(literary) to follow the example of; to take as one's model; to pattern after; to imitate

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

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