白面書生

简 白面书生 · 繁 白面書生
Mandarin · pinyin bái miàn shū shēng

Meanings

  1. lit. pale-faced scholar (idiom); young and inexperienced person without practical experience
  2. still wet behind the ears
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

白
bái · white; pure, unblemished; bright
面
miàn · face; surface; plane; side, dimension; Kangxi radical 176
書
Look up this written character
生
shēng · life, living, lifetime; birth
书
shū · book, letter, document; writings
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

2–4–1–1 · bai2 mian4 shu1 sheng1

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

4character links
Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

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.

白面書生 · find source passages ↗ · 白面书生 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

baak6 min6 syu1 sang1

Cantonese word readings for 白面書生. 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.

phrase

  1. (idiomatic) young scholar who is well-versed in academic theories but lacks real-life experience; young and inexperienced person without practical experience

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

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

白面書生 · bai2 mian4 shu1 sheng1
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 76,889
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record白面書生 白面书生 [bai2 mian4 shu1 sheng1] /lit. pale-faced scholar (idiom); young and inexperienced person without practical experience/still wet behind the ears/