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趁火打劫

Mandarin · pinyin chèn huǒ dǎ jié

(lit.) to loot a burning house (idiom)
(fig.) to take advantage of sb's misfortune

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Characters in this entry

趁: chèn · take advantage of, avail oneself
火: huǒ · fire, flame; burn; anger, rage
打: dǎ · strike, hit, beat; fight; attack
劫: jié · take by force, coerce; disaster

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

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Mandarin tones

4–3–3–2 · chen4 huo3 da3 jie2

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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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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

can3 fo2 daa2 gip3

Cantonese word readings for 趁火打劫. 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 take advantage of chaos for one's own profit

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

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