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殺人滅口

简杀人灭口 · 繁殺人滅口

Mandarin · pinyin shā rén miè kǒu

(idiom) to kill sb to prevent them from revealing sth

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Characters in this entry

殺: Look up this written character
人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
滅: Look up this written character
口: kǒu · mouth; open end; entrance, gate
杀: shā · kill, slaughter, murder; hurt
灭: miè · extinguish; wipe out, exterminate

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

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Mandarin tones

1–2–4–3 · sha1 ren2 mie4 kou3

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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.

殺人滅口 · find source passages ↗ · 杀人灭口 · find source passages ↗

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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

saat3 jan4 mit6 hau2

Cantonese word readings for 殺人滅口. 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

(idiomatic) to kill someone to silence them

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

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