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長袖善舞

简长袖善舞 · 繁長袖善舞

Mandarin · pinyin cháng xiù shàn wǔ

long sleeves help one dance beautifully (idiom); money and power will help you in any occupation

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Characters in this entry

長: zhǎng · long; length; excel in; leader; Kangxi radical 168
袖: xiù · sleeve; put something in sleeve
善: shàn · good, virtuous, charitable, kind
舞: wǔ · dance, posture, prance; brandish
长: zhǎng · long; length; excel in; leader

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

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Mandarin tones

2–4–4–3 · chang2 xiu4 shan4 wu3

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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.

長袖善舞 · find source passages ↗ · 长袖善舞 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 2 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

coeng4 zau6 sin6 mou5

Cantonese word readings for 長袖善舞. 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) to have tricks up one’s sleeve and be likely to succeed
(of businesspeople or politicians) be able to make good use of one's connections

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

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