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活物

Mandarin · pinyin huó wù

living animals

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Characters in this entry

活: huó · live, exist, survive; lively
物: wù · thing, substance, creature

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

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Mandarin tones

2–4 · huo2 wu4

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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 · 4 senses

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

noun

living thing; living creature
(biology) organism; living being; lifeform (Classifier: 個／个)
living person (Classifier: 個／个)

verb

(literary) to rescue others

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

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