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蠶食鯨吞

简蚕食鲸吞 · 繁蠶食鯨吞

Mandarin · pinyin cán shí jīng tūn

(lit.) to nibble like a silkworm or swallow like a whale (idiom)
(fig.) to seize (territory etc) incrementally or wholesale

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Characters in this entry

蠶: Look up this written character
食: shí · eat; meal; food; Kangxi radical 184
鯨: Look up this written character
吞: tūn · swallow; absorb, annex, engulf
蚕: cán · silkworms
鲸: jīng · whale

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

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Mandarin tones

2–2–1–1 · can2 shi2 jing1 tun1

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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.

蠶食鯨吞 · find source passages ↗ · 蚕食鲸吞 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

caam4 sik6 king4 tan1

Cantonese word readings for 蠶食鯨吞. 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 seize another country's territory by piecemeal encroachment or wholesale annexation

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

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