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水火不容

Mandarin · pinyin shuǐ huǒ bù róng

completely incompatible
lit. incompatible as fire and water

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Characters in this entry

水: shuǐ · water, liquid, lotion, juice
火: huǒ · fire, flame; burn; anger, rage
不: bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
容: róng · looks, appearance; figure, form

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

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Mandarin tones

3–3–4–2 · shui3 huo3 bu4 rong2

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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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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

seoi2 fo2 bat1 jung4

Cantonese word readings for 水火不容. 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

(of two people, groups or things) to be utterly opposed and incompatible

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

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