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芝麻官

Mandarin · pinyin zhī ma guān

low ranking official
petty bureaucrat

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Characters in this entry

芝: zhī · sesame; a purplish or brown mushroom thought to have miraculous powers; 'a divine and felicitous plant' (Karlgren)
麻: má · hemp, jute, flax; sesame; Kangxi radical 200
官: guān · official, public servant

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

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Mandarin tones

1–5–1 · zhi1 ma5 guan1

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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

zi1 maa4 gun1

Cantonese word readings for 芝麻官. 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.

noun

(figurative, derogatory or humorous) low-ranking official; petty bureaucrat

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

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