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漂亮話

简漂亮话 · 繁漂亮話

Mandarin · pinyin piào liang huà

fine-sounding but empty words

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Characters in this entry

漂: piào · float, drift; tossed about
亮: liàng · bright, brilliant, radiant, light
話: huà · speech, talk, language; dialect
话: huà · speech, talk, language; dialect

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

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Mandarin tones

4–5–4 · piao4 liang5 hua4

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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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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

noun

lip service

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

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