癩蛤蟆想食天鵝肉
简 癞蛤蟆想食天鹅肉 · 繁 癩蛤蟆想食天鵝肉Meanings
- literal meaning: a toad lusting after a swan's flesh, a metaphor to describe those who wants to go after someone that is out of their league
About these definitions
Source definition segments, in their original order. Characters a definition cites are shown without their Mandarin pinyin; classifier lists that CC-Canto copied from CC-CEDICT are marked Mandarin. The community dictionary is not independently verified by zimai.
Reading & tones
Schematic citation-tone diagrams from the source numbers. These are not recordings or predictions of connected speech.
Reading difference from Unihan
- 蛤 has the reading haa1 here; Unihan’s citation reading is gap3. Different syllable across these source readings.
- 蟆 has the reading mou1 here; Unihan’s citation reading is maa4. Different syllable across these source readings.
Computed by zimai: each syllable of the CC-Canto word reading is compared with Unihan 17.0.0 kCantonese for its character. The comparison does not say why a reading differs (a changed tone, 變音, a reading tied to one meaning, or a source variant).
Same syllable, six tones
Characters whose customary Unihan reading (kCantonese) is this syllable in each tone, chosen as in the tone atlas (2013 standard level, then the number of CC-CEDICT words they form), with CC-Canto 2017's meaning for that reading; a dash means no catalogue character has that reading. Checked syllables (-p, -t, -k) normally carry tones 1, 3 and 6. Character readings, not word readings; no frequency implied.
Written characters
Both source spellings are represented. Written membership is not an etymological or semantic claim.
Mandarin comparison · separate source entries
CC-Canto includes this pinyin reference: lai4 ha2 ma5 xiang3 shi2 tian1 e2 rou4. It does not establish a Mandarin word with the same meaning.
Look up this spelling in the Mandarin dictionary ↗Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading
Rime Cantonese 粵拼
laai3 haa1 mou1 soeng2 sik6 tin1 ngo4 juk6
Cantonese word readings for 癩蛤蟆想食天鵝肉. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.
CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack
Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section
Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.
proverb
- (Cantonese) to be carried away by one's wishful thinking and overestimate one's abilities; to pursue something that is out of one's league
Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack