食不言,寢不語

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Chinese

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eat; food; to feed
eat; food; to feed; animal feed
 
not; no
to speak; to say; talk
to speak; to say; talk; word
 
lie down not; no
speech; language; dialect
speech; language; dialect; tell to
 
trad. (食不言,寢不語)
simp. (食不言,寝不语)

Etymology

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From the Analects, Book 10 (《論語·鄉黨》):

食不語,寢不言。 [Classical Chinese, trad.]
食不语,寝不言。 [Classical Chinese, simp.]
From: The Analects of Confucius, c. 475 – 221 BCE, translated based on James Legge's version
Jì ròu bù chū sān rì. Chū sān rì, bù shí zhī yǐ. Shí bù yǔ, qǐn bù yán. [Pinyin]
The flesh of his family sacrifice he did not keep over three days. If kept over three days, people could not eat it. When eating, he did not converse. When in bed, he did not speak.

Pronunciation

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Proverb

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食不言,寢不語

  1. to not speak while eating or sleeping