酒逢知己千杯少
Meanings
- a thousand cups of wine is not too much when best friends meet (idiom)
- when you're with close friends, you can let your hair down
Characters in this entry
Explore the spelling
Mandarin tones
3–2–1–3–1–1–3 · jiu3 feng2 zhi1 ji3 qian1 bei1 shao3
Compare attested words with these syllables ↗Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.
Connected dictionary
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.
Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading
Rime Cantonese 粵拼
zau2 fung4 zi1 gei2 cin1 bui1 siu2
Cantonese word readings for 酒逢知己千杯少. 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.
proverb
- If you drink with a bosom friend, a thousand cups are too few.
Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack