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滑鐵盧

简滑铁卢 · 繁滑鐵盧

Mandarin · pinyin Huá tiě lú

Waterloo (Belgium)
Battle of Waterloo (1815)
(fig.) a defeat

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Characters in this entry

滑: huá · slip, slide; slippery, polished
鐵: Look up this written character
盧: Look up this written character
铁: tiě · iron; strong, solid, firm
卢: lú · cottage, hut; surname; black

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

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Mandarin tones

2–3–2 · Hua2 tie3 lu2

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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.

滑鐵盧 · find source passages ↗ · 滑铁卢 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 4 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

waat6 tit3 lou4

Cantonese word readings for 滑鐵盧. 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.

name

Waterloo (a municipality of Walloon Brabant, Belgium)
(～市) Waterloo (a city in Ontario, Canada)

noun

(figurative) defeat; disastrous defeat

verb

(chiefly Cantonese) to suffer a disastrous defeat

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

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