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草木皆兵

Mandarin · pinyin cǎo mù jiē bīng

lit. every tree or bush an enemy soldier (idiom); fig. to panic and treat everyone as an enemy
to feel beleaguered

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Characters in this entry

草: cǎo · grass, straw, thatch, herbs
木: mù · tree; wood, lumber; wooden
皆: jiē · all, every, everybody
兵: bīng · soldier, troops

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

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Mandarin tones

3–4–1–1 · cao3 mu4 jie1 bing1

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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

cou2 muk6 gaai1 bing1

Cantonese word readings for 草木皆兵. 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) Describes a situation in which someone is being overly paranoid: to apprehend danger in every sound

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

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