雷大雨小

Mandarin · pinyin léi dà yǔ xiǎo

Meanings

  1. lit. much thunder but little rain; fig. a lot of talk but little action
  2. his bark is worse than his bite
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

雷
léi · thunder
大
dà · big, great, vast, large, high
雨
yǔ · rain; rainy; Kangxi radical 173
小
xiǎo · small, tiny, insignificant
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

2–4–3–3 · lei2 da4 yu3 xiao3

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

4character links
Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗
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.

雷大雨小 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

leoi4 daai6 jyu5 siu2

Cantonese word readings for 雷大雨小. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

雷大雨小 · lei2 da4 yu3 xiao3
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 116,951
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record雷大雨小 雷大雨小 [lei2 da4 yu3 xiao3] /lit. much thunder but little rain; fig. a lot of talk but little action/his bark is worse than his bite/