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美其名曰

Mandarin · pinyin měi qí míng yuē

to call by the glorified name of (idiom)

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Characters in this entry

美: měi · beautiful, pretty; pleasing
其: qí · his, her, its, their; that
名: míng · name, rank, title, position
曰: yuē · say; Kangxi radical 73

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

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Mandarin tones

3–2–2–1 · mei3 qi2 ming2 yue1

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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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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

(idiomatic) to call it by the fine-sounding name of

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

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