DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

變生肘腋

简变生肘腋 · 繁變生肘腋

Mandarin · pinyin biàn shēng zhǒu yè

lit. calamity in one's armpit (idiom); a major coup happening on one's doorstep
trouble or danger in one's own backyard

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

變: Look up this written character
生: shēng · life, living, lifetime; birth
肘: zhǒu · the elbow; help a person shoulder a load
腋: yè · armpit
变: biàn · change, transform, alter; rebel

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

4–1–3–4 · bian4 sheng1 zhou3 ye4

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.

變生肘腋 · find source passages ↗ · 变生肘腋 · 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

(idiomatic) trouble is brewing close at hand

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

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