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苦思冥想

Mandarin · pinyin kǔ sī míng xiǎng

(idiom) to think deeply; to rack one's brains

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Characters in this entry

苦: kǔ · bitter; hardship, suffering
思: sī · think, consider, ponder; final particle
冥: míng · dark, gloomy, night; deep
想: xiǎng · think, speculate, plan, consider

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

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Mandarin tones

3–1–2–3 · ku3 si1 ming2 xiang3

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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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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

fu2 si1 ming4 soeng2

Cantonese word readings for 苦思冥想. 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.

phrase

(idiomatic) to think long and hard

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

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