鏡花水月
简 镜花水月 · 繁 鏡花水月Meanings
- lit. flowers in a mirror and the moon reflected in the lake (idiom)
- fig. an unrealistic rosy view
- viewing things through rose-tinted spectacles
- also written 水月鏡花
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Mandarin tones
4–1–3–4 · jing4 hua1 shui3 yue4
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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.
鏡花水月 · find source passages ↗ · 镜花水月 · find source passages ↗
Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses · 1 Cantonese reading
Rime Cantonese 粵拼
geng3 faa1 seoi2 jyut6
Cantonese word readings for 鏡花水月. 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
- (literal) flowers reflected on a mirror and the moon reflected in the water
- (figurative) fantasy, illusion, mere shadow, phantom, vision, something that is visible but having no substance
- (figurative) the subtle and profound beauty of poems that should not be comprehended by words literally
Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history
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