清官難斷家務事
简 清官难断家务事 · 繁 清官難斷家務事Meanings
- even an honest and upright official will have difficulty resolving a family dispute (proverb)
Characters in this entry
- 清
- qīng · clear, pure, clean; peaceful
- 官
- guān · official, public servant
- 難
- Look up this written character
- 斷
- Look up this written character
- 家
- jiā · house, home, residence; family
- 務
- Look up this written character
- 事
- shì · affair, matter, business; to serve; accident, incident
- 难
- nán · difficult, arduous, hard; unable
- 断
- duàn · sever, cut off; interrupt
- 务
- wù · affairs, business; must, should
Explore the spelling
Mandarin tones
1–1–2–4–1–4–4 · qing1 guan1 nan2 duan4 jia1 wu4 shi4
Compare attested words with these syllables ↗Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.
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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.
清官難斷家務事 · find source passages ↗ · 清官难断家务事 · find source passages ↗
Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading
Rime Cantonese 粵拼
cing1 gun1 naan4 dyun3 gaa1 mou6 si6
Cantonese word readings for 清官難斷家務事. 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.
proverb
- even upright officials find it hard to settle family quarrels
Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack