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站不住腳

简站不住脚 · 繁站不住腳

Mandarin · pinyin zhàn bu zhù jiǎo

ill-founded
groundless

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Characters in this entry

站: zhàn · stand up; a stand, station
不: bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
住: zhù · reside, live at, dwell, lodge; stop
腳: jiǎo · foot; base, leg, foundation
脚: jiǎo · leg, foot; base, leg, foundation

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

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Mandarin tones

4–5–4–3 · zhan4 bu5 zhu4 jiao3

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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.

站不住腳 · find source passages ↗ · 站不住脚 · find source passages ↗

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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) to be ill-founded; to be groundless; to not have a leg to stand on; to be unable to hold water

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

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