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生死攸關

简生死攸关 · 繁生死攸關

Mandarin · pinyin shēng sǐ yōu guān

matter of life and death

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Characters in this entry

生: shēng · life, living, lifetime; birth
死: sǐ · die; dead; death
攸: yōu · distant, far; adverbial prefix
關: Look up this written character
关: guān · frontier pass; close; relation

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

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Mandarin tones

1–3–1–1 · sheng1 si3 you1 guan1

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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.

生死攸關 · find source passages ↗ · 生死攸关 · find source passages ↗

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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) to be a matter of life and death

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

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