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養虎遺患

简养虎遗患 · 繁養虎遺患

Mandarin · pinyin yǎng hǔ yí huàn

Rear a tiger and court disaster. (idiom); fig. if you're too lenient with sb, he will damage you later
to cherish a snake in one's bosom

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Characters in this entry

養: yǎng · raise, rear, bring up; support
虎: hǔ · tiger; brave, fierce; surname
遺: Look up this written character
患: huàn · suffer, worry about; suffering
养: yǎng · raise, rear, bring up; support
遗: yí · lose; articles lost; omit

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

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Mandarin tones

3–3–2–4 · yang3 hu3 yi2 huan4

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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.

養虎遺患 · find source passages ↗ · 养虎遗患 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

joeng5 fu2 wai4 waan6

Cantonese word readings for 養虎遺患. 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 not eliminate bad people or the enemy and bring future trouble to oneself

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

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