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言多必失

Mandarin · pinyin yán duō bì shī

if you say too much, you're bound to slip up at some point (idiom)

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Characters in this entry

言: yán · words, speech; speak, say; Kangxi radical 149
多: duō · much, many; more than, over
必: bì · surely, most certainly; must
失: shī · lose; make mistake, neglect

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

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Mandarin tones

2–1–4–1 · yan2 duo1 bi4 shi1

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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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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

proverb

the more one says, the easier it is to make a mistake

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

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