生辰八字

Mandarin · pinyin shēng chén bā zì

Meanings

  1. one's birth data for astrological purposes, combined from year, month, day, hour, heavenly trunk and earthly branch
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Characters in this entry

生
shēng · life, living, lifetime; birth
辰
chén · early morning; fifth earthly branch; Kangxi radical 161
八
bā · eight; all around, all sides
字
zì · letter, character, word
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–2–1–4 · sheng1 chen2 ba1 zi4

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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 · 2 Cantonese readings

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

saang1 san4 baat3 zi6 · sang1 san4 baat3 zi6

Cantonese word readings for 生辰八字. 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.

noun

  1. eight characters that indicate the year, month, date and double-hour of one's birth, used in fortune-telling

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

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

生辰八字 · sheng1 chen2 ba1 zi4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 74,626
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record生辰八字 生辰八字 [sheng1 chen2 ba1 zi4] /one's birth data for astrological purposes, combined from year, month, day, hour, heavenly trunk and earthly branch/