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長話短說

简长话短说 · 繁長話短說

Mandarin · pinyin cháng huà duǎn shuō

(idiom) to make a long story short; to keep it brief

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Characters in this entry

長: zhǎng · long; length; excel in; leader; Kangxi radical 168
話: huà · speech, talk, language; dialect
短: duǎn · short; brief; deficient, lacking
說: shuō · speak, say, talk; scold, upbraid
长: zhǎng · long; length; excel in; leader
话: huà · speech, talk, language; dialect
说: shuō · speak, say, talk; scold, upbraid

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

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Mandarin tones

2–4–3–1 · chang2 hua4 duan3 shuo1

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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.

長話短說 · find source passages ↗ · 长话短说 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

coeng4 waa6 dyun2 syut3

Cantonese word readings for 長話短說. 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 make a long story short

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

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