DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

無厘頭

简无厘头 · 繁無厘頭

Mandarin · pinyin wú lí tóu

silly talk or "mo lei tau" (Cantonese), genre of humor emerging from Hong Kong late in the 20th century

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

無: Look up this written character
厘: lí · manage, control; thousandth part of tael
頭: tóu · head; top; chief, first; boss
无: wú · negative, no, not; Kangxi radical 71
头: tóu · head; top; chief, first; boss

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

2–2–2 · wu2 li2 tou2

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

4character 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.

無厘頭 · find source passages ↗ · 无厘头 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 2 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

mou4 lei4 tau4

Cantonese word readings for 無厘頭. 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

(Cantonese or dialectal) nonsensical; whimsical; capricious; inexplicable (of behavior, thinking, performance, etc.)

noun

mo lei tau (a type of late 20th century Hong Kongnese humor)

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

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