DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

死要面子活受罪

Mandarin · pinyin sǐ yào miàn zi huó shòu zuì

to go through hell for the sake of keeping up appearances (idiom)

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

死: sǐ · die; dead; death
要: yào · necessary, essential; necessity
面: miàn · face; surface; plane; side, dimension; Kangxi radical 176
子: zǐ · offspring, child; fruit, seed of; first earthly branch
活: huó · live, exist, survive; lively
受: shòu · receive, accept, get; bear, stand
罪: zuì · crime, sin, vice; evil; hardship

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

3–4–4–5–2–4–4 · si3 yao4 mian4 zi5 huo2 shou4 zui4

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

7character links

Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗

Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

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.

死要面子活受罪 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗