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畫餅充飢

简画饼充饥 · 繁畫餅充飢

Mandarin · pinyin huà bǐng chōng jī

lit. to allay one's hunger using a picture of a cake
to feed on illusions (idiom)

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Characters in this entry

畫: huà · delineate, painting, picture, drawing; draw
餅: bǐng · rice-cakes, biscuits
充: chōng · fill, be full, supply
飢: Look up this written character
画: huà · a painting, picture, drawing; to draw
饼: bǐng · rice-cakes, biscuits
饥: jī · hunger, starving; hungry; a famine

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

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Mandarin tones

4–3–1–1 · hua4 bing3 chong1 ji1

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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.

畫餅充飢 · find source passages ↗ · 画饼充饥 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

waak6 beng2 cung1 gei1

Cantonese word readings for 畫餅充飢. 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.

phrase

(figurative) to feed on illusions; (of something attractive-looking) to be of no actual use; like a pie in the sky

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

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