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倒悬之苦

dào xuán zhī kǔdictionary entry
DEFINITION CC-CEDICT
lit. the pain of being hanged upside down (idiom) / fig. extremely critical situation / dire straits
Sources & editorial notes

Reference definitions: CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source release 2026-10-27T01:55:52Z. Imported 2026-10-27. Definition wording and meaning order are retained. Recognized pronunciation references are displayed with tone marks; the original source record is available below.

Source record: cd-27ecc81fd8c1fb44. Source SHA-256: bbc4b27f26bee1a262f4d7939667a040c7857c7fc0200a2fa7a86d3352a09eae.

Original source entry:

倒懸之苦 倒悬之苦 [dao4 xuan2 zhi1 ku3] /lit. the pain of being hanged upside down (idiom); fig. extremely critical situation/dire straits/

Reference definitions and teaching material have separate provenance.

Reference information

The definitions above are from CC-CEDICT. Examples and usage notes are available on selected entries.

Character information

View the individual characters. Their meanings do not necessarily explain the meaning of the whole word.

Other forms in these source records: 倒懸之苦

  • 倒
    dǎo

    to fall / to collapse / to lie horizontally / to fail / to go bankrupt / to overthrow / to change (trains or buses) / to move around / to resell at a profit

    dào

    to invert / to place upside down or frontside back / to pour out / to tip out / to dump / inverted / upside down / reversed / to go backward / contrary to what one might expect / but / yet

  • 悬
    xuán

    to hang or suspend / to worry / public announcement / unresolved / baseless / without foundation

  • 之
    zhī

    (possessive particle, literary equivalent of 的[de]) / him / her / it

  • 苦
    kǔ

    bitter / hardship / pain / to suffer / to bring suffering to / painstakingly

Reference definitions from CC-CEDICT.