DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT
鐵打的衙門,流水的官
简 铁打的衙门,流水的官 · 繁 鐵打的衙門,流水的官Mandarin · pinyin tiě dǎ de yá men , liú shuǐ de guān
Meanings
- lit. the yamen is strong as iron, the officials flow like water (idiom)
- fig. government officials come and go
Characters in this entry
- 鐵
- Look up this written character
- 打
- dǎ · strike, hit, beat; fight; attack
- 的
- de · possessive, adjectival suffix
- 衙
- yá · public office; official residence
- 門
- mén · gate, door, entrance, opening; Kangxi radical 169
- 流
- liú · flow, circulate, drift; class
- 水
- shuǐ · water, liquid, lotion, juice
- 官
- guān · official, public servant
- 铁
- tiě · iron; strong, solid, firm
- 门
- mén · gate, door, entrance, opening
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Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.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.
鐵打的衙門,流水的官 · find source passages ↗ · 铁打的衙门,流水的官 · find source passages ↗