背山臨水

简 背山临水 · 繁 背山臨水
Mandarin · pinyin bèi shān lín shuǐ

Meanings

  1. with back to the mountain and facing the water (favored location)
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Characters in this entry

背
bèi · back; back side; behind; betray
山
shān · mountain, hill, peak
臨
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水
shuǐ · water, liquid, lotion, juice
临
lín · draw near, approach; descend
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

4–1–2–3 · bei4 shan1 lin2 shui3

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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.

背山臨水 · find source passages ↗ · 背山临水 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

bui3 saan1 lam4 seoi2

Cantonese word readings for 背山臨水. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

背山臨水 · bei4 shan1 lin2 shui3
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 90,265
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record背山臨水 背山临水 [bei4 shan1 lin2 shui3] /with back to the mountain and facing the water (favored location)/