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民工

Mandarin · pinyin mín gōng

migrant worker (who moved from a rural area of China to a city to find work)
temporary worker enlisted on a public project

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Characters in this entry

民: mín · people, subjects, citizens
工: gōng · labor, work; worker, laborer

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

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Mandarin tones

2–1 · min2 gong1

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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.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

man4 gung1

Cantonese word readings for 民工. 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.

noun

(abbreviation, alt-of) short for 農民工／农民工 (nóngmíngōng, “migrant worker”)

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

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