DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

腰斬

简腰斩 · 繁腰斬

Mandarin · pinyin yāo zhǎn

to chop sb in half at the waist (capital punishment)
to cut sth in half
to reduce sth by a dramatic margin
to terminate
to cut short

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Characters in this entry

腰: yāo · waist; kidney
斬: Look up this written character
斩: zhǎn · cut, chop, sever; behead

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

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Mandarin tones

1–3 · yao1 zhan3

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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.

腰斬 · find source passages ↗ · 腰斩 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jiu1 zaam2

Cantonese word readings for 腰斬. 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.

verb

(historical) to execute by waist chop
(figurative, by extension) to terminate an ongoing series (TV series, comics, concert tour, or other entertainment)
(figurative) to diminish by half; to be reduced to half the original amount

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

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