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酒香不怕巷子深

Mandarin · pinyin jiǔ xiāng bù pà xiàng zi shēn

fragrant wine fears no dark alley (idiom)
quality goods need no advertising

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Characters in this entry

酒: jiǔ · wine, spirits, liquor, alcoholic beverage
香: xiāng · fragrant, sweet-smelling; incense; Kangxi radical 186
不: bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
怕: pà · to fear, be afraid of; apprehensive
巷: xiàng · alley, lane
子: zǐ · offspring, child; fruit, seed of; first earthly branch
深: shēn · deep; depth; far; very, extreme

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

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Mandarin tones

3–1–4–4–4–5–1 · jiu3 xiang1 bu4 pa4 xiang4 zi5 shen1

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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.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

zau2 hoeng1 bat1 paa3 hong6 zi2 sam1

Cantonese word readings for 酒香不怕巷子深. 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) Quality goods need no advertising.

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

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