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累死累活

Mandarin · pinyin lèi sǐ lèi huó

to tire oneself out through overwork
to work oneself to death

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Characters in this entry

累: lèi · tired; implicate, involve; bother
死: sǐ · die; dead; death
活: huó · live, exist, survive; lively

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

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Mandarin tones

4–3–4–2 · lei4 si3 lei4 huo2

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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

leoi6 sei2 leoi6 wut6

Cantonese word readings for 累死累活. 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) work oneself to death; tire oneself out through overwork

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

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