Chinese word dictionary

危言耸听

wēi yán sǒng tīng · frightening words to scare people (idiom); alarmist talk; reds under the beds

Practice word

Word information

Simplified危言耸听

Traditional危言聳聽

Pinyinwēi yán sǒng tīng

Part of speechDictionary

HSK 3.0Not listed

HSK 2.0Not listed

Character breakdown

Study each Hanzi separately, then return to the complete word so pronunciation, meaning, and movement stay connected.

危wēi

dangerous, precarious; high

言yán

words, speech; to speak, to say

耸sǒng

to excite, to urge; to raise; to shrug; lofty, towering

听tīng

to hear, to listen; to understand; to obey

How to learn 危言耸听

Listen once without reading, repeat the pinyin with its tones, then write every character in sequence. Finally, recall the complete meaning instead of memorizing each character as an isolated translation.

When the word appears in a sentence, check whether its part of speech and meaning match the definition shown here. Chinese words can change nuance with context.

Related vocabulary

Words with the same characters

Compare how a familiar Hanzi changes meaning inside another word.

好听hǎotīng

pleasant to hear

听tīng

to listen to; to hear; to heed; to obey; a can (loanword from English "tin"); classifier for canned beverages; to let be; to allow (Taiwan pr. [ting4]); (literary) to administer; to deal with (Taiwan pr. [ting4])

听见tīngjiàn

to hear

难听nántīng

unpleasant to hear; coarse; vulgar; offensive; shameful

听说tīngshuō

to hear (sth said); one hears (that); hearsay; listening and speaking

语言yǔyán

language; CL:門|门[men2],種|种[zhong3]