萬水千山

简 万水千山 · 繁 萬水千山
Mandarin · pinyin wàn shuǐ qiān shān

Meanings

  1. ten thousand crags and torrents (idiom); the trials and tribulations of a long journey
  2. a long and difficult road
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

萬
Look up this written character
水
shuǐ · water, liquid, lotion, juice
千
qiān · thousand; many, numerous; very; (Cant.) a cheater, swindler
山
shān · mountain, hill, peak
万
wàn · mò · ten thousand; innumerable
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

4–3–1–1 · wan4 shui3 qian1 shan1

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

4character links
Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

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.

萬水千山 · find source passages ↗ · 万水千山 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

  1. (alt-of, alternative, idiomatic) alternative form of 千山萬水 /千山万水 (qiānshānwànshuǐ, “many rivers and mountains; distant, dangerous and difficult path”)

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

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

萬水千山 · wan4 shui3 qian1 shan1
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 94,942
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record萬水千山 万水千山 [wan4 shui3 qian1 shan1] /ten thousand crags and torrents (idiom); the trials and tribulations of a long journey/a long and difficult road/