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白髮人送黑髮人

简白发人送黑发人 · 繁白髮人送黑髮人

Mandarin · pinyin bái fà rén sòng hēi fà rén

to see one's child die before oneself

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Characters in this entry

白: bái · white; pure, unblemished; bright
髮: fà · fǎ · hair
人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
送: sòng · see off, send off; dispatch, give
黑: hēi · black; dark; evil, sinister; Kangxi radical 203
发: fā · issue, dispatch, send out; hair

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

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Mandarin tones

2–4–2–4–1–4–2 · bai2 fa4 ren2 song4 hei1 fa4 ren2

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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.

白髮人送黑髮人 · find source passages ↗ · 白发人送黑发人 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

baak6 faat3 jan4 sung3 hak1 faat3 jan4

Cantonese word readings for 白髮人送黑髮人. 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

(of an old person) to see one's child die earlier than oneself

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

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