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推敲

tuī qiāo
HSK 7freq #28185

Meanings

CC-CEDICT

tuī qiāo
  1. 1.to think over

CC-CEDICT · CC BY-SA

Wiktionary

  1. 1.to deliberate; to think over; to give a thought to; to weigh up; to scrutinize

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Etymology

From the story of the Tang dynasty poet Jia Dao (779–843). Legend has it that one day while he was riding on his donkey, he was deliberating over the following line in his poem: He was pondering whether the 推 (“to push”) should be replaced by 敲 (“to knock”). In fact, he was so engrossed in his deliberation that he did not notice an official's convoy coming, and ran straight into it. He was then taken for questioning on why he failed to avoid the convoy, and he explained that he was deep in thought about a poem he composed. The official whom Jia ran into was Han Yu, a famous Tang dynasty essayist and poet. After deliberation, Han said 敲 (“to knock”) would be a better word choice in this verse, since it highlights the quietness of the night. Jia regarded Han as his “one-character teacher” (一字之師/一字之师 (yīzìzhīshī)), followed his advice, and finalised verses of the poem.

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

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Components from cjk-decomp · MIT

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Wiktionary · CC BY-SA