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破天荒

Mandarin · pinyin pò tiān huāng

unprecedented
for the first time
never before
first ever

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Characters in this entry

破: pò · break, ruin, destroy; rout
天: tiān · sky, heaven; god, celestial
荒: huāng · wasteland, desert; uncultivated

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

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Mandarin tones

4–1–1 · po4 tian1 huang1

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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.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

po3 tin1 fong1

Cantonese word readings for 破天荒. 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) unprecedented; unheard-of; for the first time

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

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