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費盡心機

简费尽心机 · 繁費盡心機

Mandarin · pinyin fèi jìn xīn jī

to rack one's brains for schemes (idiom)
to beat one's brains out

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Characters in this entry

費: Look up this written character
盡: Look up this written character
心: xīn · heart; mind, intelligence; soul; 5th lunar mansion, determinative star α Scorpii (Antares)
機: Look up this written character
费: fèi · expenses, expenditures, fee
尽: jǐn · exhaust, use up; deplete
机: jī · desk; machine; moment

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

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Mandarin tones

4–4–1–1 · fei4 jin4 xin1 ji1

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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.

費盡心機 · find source passages ↗ · 费尽心机 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

fai3 zeon6 sam1 gei1

Cantonese word readings for 費盡心機. 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) rack one's brains; beat one's brains out

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

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