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飢寒交迫

简饥寒交迫 · 繁飢寒交迫

Mandarin · pinyin jī hán jiāo pò

beset by hunger and cold (idiom)
starving and freezing
in desperate poverty

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Characters in this entry

飢: Look up this written character
寒: hán · cold, wintry, chilly
交: jiāo · mix; intersect; exchange, communicate; deliver
迫: pò · coerce, force, compel; urgent
饥: jī · hunger, starving; hungry; a famine

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

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Mandarin tones

1–2–1–4 · ji1 han2 jiao1 po4

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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.

飢寒交迫 · find source passages ↗ · 饥寒交迫 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 2 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

gei1 hon4 gaau1 bik1

Cantonese word readings for 飢寒交迫. 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.

adj

(idiomatic) cold and hungry at the same time
(idiomatic, figuratively) extremely impoverished

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

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