看菜吃飯

简 看菜吃饭 · 繁 看菜吃飯
Mandarin · pinyin kàn cài chī fàn

Meanings

  1. (lit.) to eat depending on the dish (idiom)
  2. (fig.) to act according to actual circumstances
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

看
kàn · look, see; examine, scrutinize
菜
cài · vegetables; dish, order; food
吃
chī · eat; drink; suffer, endure, bear
飯
fàn · cooked rice; food; meal
饭
fàn · cooked rice; food, meal
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

4–4–1–4 · kan4 cai4 chi1 fan4

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

5character 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.

看菜吃飯 · find source passages ↗ · 看菜吃饭 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

看菜吃飯 · kan4 cai4 chi1 fan4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 78,324
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record看菜吃飯 看菜吃饭 [kan4 cai4 chi1 fan4] /(lit.) to eat depending on the dish (idiom)/(fig.) to act according to actual circumstances/