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要死不活

Mandarin · pinyin yào sǐ bù huó

half dead
more dead than alive

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Characters in this entry

要: yào · necessary, essential; necessity
死: sǐ · die; dead; death
不: bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
活: huó · live, exist, survive; lively

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

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Mandarin tones

4–3–4–2 · yao4 si3 bu4 huo2

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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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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jiu3 sei2 bat1 wut6

Cantonese word readings for 要死不活. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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