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花拳繡腿

简花拳绣腿 · 繁花拳繡腿

Mandarin · pinyin huā quán xiù tuǐ

flowery of fist with fancy footwork (idiom)
highly embellished and ineffectual
fancy but impractical skills
all show and no go
pugilistic wankery

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Characters in this entry

花: huā · flower; blossoms
拳: quán · fist; various forms of boxing
繡: Look up this written character
腿: tuǐ · legs, thighs
绣: xiù · embroider; embroidery; ornament

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

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Mandarin tones

1–2–4–3 · hua1 quan2 xiu4 tui3

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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.

花拳繡腿 · find source passages ↗ · 花拳绣腿 · find source passages ↗

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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) highly embellished and ineffectual; fancy but impractical skills; all show and no go; pugilistic

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

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