無路可退

简 无路可退 · 繁 無路可退
Mandarin · pinyin wú lù kě tuì

Meanings

  1. without a retreat route
  2. caught in a dead end
  3. having burned one's bridges
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Characters in this entry

無
Look up this written character
路
lù · road, path, street; journey
可
kě · may, can, -able; possibly
退
tuì · step back, retreat, withdraw
无
wú · negative, no, not; Kangxi radical 71
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2–4–3–4 · wu2 lu4 ke3 tui4

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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.

無路可退 · find source passages ↗ · 无路可退 · find source passages ↗

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無路可退 · wu2 lu4 ke3 tui4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 70,184
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record無路可退 无路可退 [wu2 lu4 ke3 tui4] /without a retreat route/caught in a dead end/having burned one's bridges/