DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

生滅

简生灭 · 繁生滅

Mandarin · pinyin shēng miè

life and death

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

生: shēng · life, living, lifetime; birth
滅: Look up this written character
灭: miè · extinguish; wipe out, exterminate

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

1–4 · sheng1 mie4

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

2character 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.

生滅 · find source passages ↗ · 生灭 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

noun

(Buddhism) birth and death; appearance and disappearance; production and annihilation
(literary) life and death

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

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