DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

活生生

Mandarin · pinyin huó shēng shēng

real (people)
living (artist)
while still alive (e.g. skinned alive)

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

活: huó · live, exist, survive; lively
生: shēng · life, living, lifetime; birth

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

2–1–1 · huo2 sheng1 sheng1

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

2character links

Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗

Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

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.

活生生 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

wut6 saang1 saang1

Cantonese word readings for 活生生. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

adj

real; living; alive
lively; vivid

adv

while still alive

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

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack