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白日做夢

简白日做梦 · 繁白日做夢

Mandarin · pinyin bái rì zuò mèng

to daydream
to indulge in wishful thinking

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Characters in this entry

白: bái · white; pure, unblemished; bright
日: rì · sun; day; daytime
做: zuò · work, make; act
夢: Look up this written character
梦: mèng · dream; visionary; wishful

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

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Mandarin tones

2–4–4–4 · bai2 ri4 zuo4 meng4

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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.

白日做夢 · find source passages ↗ · 白日做梦 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

baak6 jat6 zou6 mung6

Cantonese word readings for 白日做夢. 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

(idiomatic) to spin daydreams; to indulge in wishful thinking; to build castles in the air

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

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