過街老鼠

简 过街老鼠 · 繁 過街老鼠
Cantonese · source Jyutpinggwo3 gaai1 lou5 syu2

Meanings

  1. a phrase to describe a malevolent person who is spurned by everyone
About these definitions

Source definition segments, in their original order. Characters a definition cites are shown without their Mandarin pinyin; classifier lists that CC-Canto copied from CC-CEDICT are marked Mandarin. The community dictionary is not independently verified by zimai.

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Reading & tones

Schematic citation-tone diagrams from the source numbers. These are not recordings or predictions of connected speech.

Same syllable, six tones

Characters whose customary Unihan reading (kCantonese) is this syllable in each tone, chosen as in the tone atlas (2013 standard level, then the number of CC-CEDICT words they form), with CC-Canto 2017's meaning for that reading; a dash means no catalogue character has that reading. Checked syllables (-p, -t, -k) normally carry tones 1, 3 and 6. Character readings, not word readings; no frequency implied.

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Written characters

Both source spellings are represented. Written membership is not an etymological or semantic claim.

Cantonese characters and the Mandarin bridge ↗

Mandarin comparison · separate source entries

CC-CEDICT, the Mandarin–English dictionary, lists the same written form:

  • 過街老鼠 guò jiē lǎo shǔ CC-CEDICT · Mandarinsb or sth detested by all; target of scorn; anathema; cf. 老鼠過街,人人喊打 lǎo shǔ guò jiē, rén rén hǎn dǎ

A separate source entry, shown for comparison. The same characters can carry different senses in Mandarin and in Cantonese; zimai does not align these senses.

CC-Canto includes this pinyin reference: guo4 jie1 lao3 shu3. It does not establish a Mandarin word with the same meaning.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

gwo3 gaai1 lou5 syu2

Cantonese word readings for 過街老鼠. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

phrase

  1. (idiomatic) person detested or despised by everyone

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

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

CC-Canto · Pleco Inc. · edition 2017-02-02
Source line 18,284 · Original publisher · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Edition & transformations

Mandarin comparison: CC-CEDICT 2026-10-13, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source reading differences and six-tone sets: computed by zimai from Unihan 17.0.0 (Unicode License V3).

Exact source record & identity過街老鼠 过街老鼠 [guo4 jie1 lao3 shu3] {gwo3 gaai1 lou5 syu2} /a phrase to describe a malevolent person who is spurned by everyone/

SHA-256: d741062eade6771edf325716207a78a12a469358d8ec7bb747ba43d50803d0ff