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盡人事

简尽人事 · 繁盡人事

Mandarin · pinyin jìn rén shì

to do one's utmost; to do everything one can

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Characters in this entry

盡: Look up this written character
人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
事: shì · affair, matter, business; to serve; accident, incident
尽: jǐn · exhaust, use up; deplete

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

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Mandarin tones

4–2–4 · jin4 ren2 shi4

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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.

盡人事 · find source passages ↗ · 尽人事 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

zeon6 jan4 si6

Cantonese word readings for 盡人事. 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.

verb

to do what one can (to save a dying person, etc.); to do all that is humanly possible (though with little hope of success)

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

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