藥石無靈

简 药石无灵 · 繁 藥石無靈
Mandarin · pinyin yào shí wú líng

Meanings

  1. (idiom) (of a sick person or disease) to be incurable
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Characters in this entry

藥
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石
shí · stone, rock, mineral; Kangxi radical 112
無
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靈
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药
yào · leaf of Dahurian angelica plant; medicine
无
wú · negative, no, not; Kangxi radical 71
灵
líng · spirit, soul; spiritual world
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

4–2–2–2 · yao4 shi2 wu2 ling2

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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.

藥石無靈 · find source passages ↗ · 药石无灵 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

joek6 sek6 mou4 ling4

Cantonese word readings for 藥石無靈. 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

  1. (of a sick person or disease) to be incurable

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

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