半 路 出 家

bàn lù chū jiādictionary entry

(lit.) to enter monastic life at a mature age (idiom) / (fig.) to change one's career / to take up a new line of work or specialization / to enter a profession from a different background

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-52743aeb6dc89b93. Source SHA-256: bbc4b27f26bee1a262f4d7939667a040c7857c7fc0200a2fa7a86d3352a09eae.

Original source entry:

半路出家 半路出家 [ban4 lu4 chu1 jia1] /(lit.) to enter monastic life at a mature age (idiom)/(fig.) to change one's career; to take up a new line of work or specialization; to enter a profession from a different background/

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.

半
bàn
half / semi- / incomplete / (after a number) and a half
路
lù
road (CL:條|条[tiáo]) / journey / route / line (bus etc) / sort / kind
Lù
surname Lu
出
chū
to go out / to come out / to arise / to occur / to produce / to yield / to go beyond / to exceed / (used after a verb to indicate an outward direction or a positive result) / classifier for dramas, plays, operas etc
家
jiā
used in 傢伙|家伙[jiā huo] and 傢俱|家俱[jiā jù] / home / family / (polite) my (sister, uncle etc) / classifier for families or businesses / refers to the philosophical schools of pre-Han China / noun suffix for a specialist in some activity, such as a musician or revolutionary, corresponding to English -ist, -er, -ary or -ian / CL:個|个[gè]

Reference definitions from CC-CEDICT.