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煞有介事

Mandarin · pinyin shà yǒu jiè shì

to make a show of being very much in earnest (idiom)
to act as if one is taking things very seriously

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Characters in this entry

煞: shā · malignant deity; baleful, noxious; strike dead
有: yǒu · have, own, possess; exist
介: jiè · forerunner, herald, harbinger; to lie between; sea shell; to wear armor
事: shì · affair, matter, business; to serve; accident, incident

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

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Mandarin tones

4–3–4–4 · sha4 you3 jie4 shi4

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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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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

saat3 jau5 gaai3 si6

Cantonese word readings for 煞有介事. 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.

phrase

(idiomatic) in all apparent seriousness

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

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