活不下去

Mandarin · pinyin huó bù xià qu

Meanings

  1. impossible to make a living
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Characters in this entry

活
huó · live, exist, survive; lively
不
bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
下
xià · under, underneath, below; down; inferior; bring down
去
qù · go away, leave, depart
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2–4–4–5 · huo2 bu4 xia4 qu5

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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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