狐狸尾巴

Mandarin · pinyin hú li wěi ba

Meanings

  1. lit. fox's tail (idiom); visible sign of evil intentions
  2. to reveal one's evil nature
  3. evidence that reveals the villain
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Characters in this entry

狐
hú · fox
狸
lí · fox
尾
wěi · tail, extremity; end, stern; 6th lunar mansion, determinative star μ¹ Scorpii (Xamidimura)
巴
bā · greatly desire, anxiously hope
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2–5–3–5 · hu2 li5 wei3 ba5

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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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狐狸尾巴 · hu2 li5 wei3 ba5
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 72,265
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record狐狸尾巴 狐狸尾巴 [hu2 li5 wei3 ba5] /lit. fox's tail (idiom); visible sign of evil intentions/to reveal one's evil nature/evidence that reveals the villain/