DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

飽人不知餓人飢

简饱人不知饿人饥 · 繁飽人不知餓人飢

Mandarin · pinyin bǎo rén bù zhī è rén jī

The well-fed cannot know how the starving suffer (idiom).

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

飽: Look up this written character
人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
不: bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
知: zhī · know, perceive, comprehend
餓: Look up this written character
飢: Look up this written character
饱: bǎo · eat heartily; eat one's fill
饿: è · hungry; greedy for; hunger
饥: jī · hunger, starving; hungry; a famine

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

3–2–4–1–4–2–1 · bao3 ren2 bu4 zhi1 e4 ren2 ji1

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

6character 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.

飽人不知餓人飢 · find source passages ↗ · 饱人不知饿人饥 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗