男主外,女主內

简 男主外,女主内 · 繁 男主外,女主內
Mandarin · pinyin nán zhǔ wài , nǚ zhǔ nèi

Meanings

  1. men go out to work and women stay at home (idiom)
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Characters in this entry

男
nán · male, man; son; baron; surname
主
zhǔ · master, chief owner; host; lord
外
wài · out, outside, external; foreign
女
nǚ · woman, girl; feminine; Kangxi radical 38; 10th lunar mansion, determinative star ε Aquarii (Albali)
內
nèi · inside, interior; domestic
内
nèi · inside
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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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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男主外,女主內 · nan2 zhu3 wai4 , nu:3 zhu3 nei4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 74,983
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record男主外,女主內 男主外,女主内 [nan2 zhu3 wai4 , nu:3 zhu3 nei4] /men go out to work and women stay at home (idiom)/