See tofu-dreg in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
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"3": "豆腐渣",
"t": "tofu dreg; okara"
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"etymology_text": "Calque of Chinese 豆腐渣 (dòufuzhā, “tofu dreg; okara”), dòufuzhā as in 豆腐渣工程 (dòufuzhā gōngchéng) and similar phrases. Coined by Tan Zuoren in 2008.",
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"ref": "2011, Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei's Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 177:",
"text": "No one asks about the shoddy “tofu-dregs engineering”; instead, we blindly accuse “running teacher Fan.” Nationalism is only a fig leaf for the feeble-minded, a tricky maneuver that prevents everyone from seeing the complete picture.",
"type": "quote"
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{
"ref": "2014, Catie Snow Bailard, Democracy's Double-Edged Sword: How Internet Use Changes Citizens' Views of Their Government, Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM, →ISBN:",
"text": "In the 2008 Sichuan earthquake several thousand school buildings collapsed, killing thousands of children and bringing the world's attention to the shoddy “tofu-dregs” buildings and rampant corruption that had skimmed the public funds ...",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2014, Yi Kang, Disaster Management in China in a Changing Era, Springer, →ISBN, page 56:",
"text": "Tan Zuoron, a writer who tried to document “shoddy tofu-dregs construction” that might have caused massive school-building collapses, was sentenced to prison.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2015, Rongji Zhu, Zhu Rongji on the Record: The Road to Reform: 1998-2003, Brookings Institution Press, →ISBN, page 98:",
"text": "For example, the Kunming-Luquan highway in Kunming, Yunnan Province, had become a “tofu dreg project.”",
"type": "quote"
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{
"ref": "2015, Y. Liu, “Tweeting, re-tweeting, and commenting: Microblogging and social movements in China”, in Asian Journal of Communication:",
"text": "Individual Chinese citizens explicitly criticized the Ministry of Railway, describing it with such disparaging terms as ‘asshole’ and ‘bastard,’ and described the high-speed train project as one of the ‘tofu-dreg projects (豆腐渣工程 in Mandarin),’ which referred to projects with poor [quality].",
"type": "quote"
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{
"ref": "2016, S. Sun, “The Three Conditions for Behavior, and the Five Behavior Management Measures”, in Five Basic Institution Structures …:",
"text": "‘Tofu-dreg Projects’ during the Ming dynasty.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2017, Paul Midler, What's Wrong with China, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:",
"text": "The poor condition of tofu dregs schoolhouses was used to explain the high casualty rate, but the statistic did not fly. The ratio of young to old among the dead—roughly one to ten—ought to have been less stark.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A poorly constructed building in China, or the shoddy material(s) used to construct it."
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"(engineering, attributive) A poorly constructed building in China, or the shoddy material(s) used to construct it."
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"etymology_text": "Calque of Chinese 豆腐渣 (dòufuzhā, “tofu dreg; okara”), dòufuzhā as in 豆腐渣工程 (dòufuzhā gōngchéng) and similar phrases. Coined by Tan Zuoren in 2008.",
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"ref": "2011, Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei's Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 177:",
"text": "No one asks about the shoddy “tofu-dregs engineering”; instead, we blindly accuse “running teacher Fan.” Nationalism is only a fig leaf for the feeble-minded, a tricky maneuver that prevents everyone from seeing the complete picture.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2014, Catie Snow Bailard, Democracy's Double-Edged Sword: How Internet Use Changes Citizens' Views of Their Government, Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM, →ISBN:",
"text": "In the 2008 Sichuan earthquake several thousand school buildings collapsed, killing thousands of children and bringing the world's attention to the shoddy “tofu-dregs” buildings and rampant corruption that had skimmed the public funds ...",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2014, Yi Kang, Disaster Management in China in a Changing Era, Springer, →ISBN, page 56:",
"text": "Tan Zuoron, a writer who tried to document “shoddy tofu-dregs construction” that might have caused massive school-building collapses, was sentenced to prison.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2015, Rongji Zhu, Zhu Rongji on the Record: The Road to Reform: 1998-2003, Brookings Institution Press, →ISBN, page 98:",
"text": "For example, the Kunming-Luquan highway in Kunming, Yunnan Province, had become a “tofu dreg project.”",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2015, Y. Liu, “Tweeting, re-tweeting, and commenting: Microblogging and social movements in China”, in Asian Journal of Communication:",
"text": "Individual Chinese citizens explicitly criticized the Ministry of Railway, describing it with such disparaging terms as ‘asshole’ and ‘bastard,’ and described the high-speed train project as one of the ‘tofu-dreg projects (豆腐渣工程 in Mandarin),’ which referred to projects with poor [quality].",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2016, S. Sun, “The Three Conditions for Behavior, and the Five Behavior Management Measures”, in Five Basic Institution Structures …:",
"text": "‘Tofu-dreg Projects’ during the Ming dynasty.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2017, Paul Midler, What's Wrong with China, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:",
"text": "The poor condition of tofu dregs schoolhouses was used to explain the high casualty rate, but the statistic did not fly. The ratio of young to old among the dead—roughly one to ten—ought to have been less stark.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
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"A poorly constructed building in China, or the shoddy material(s) used to construct it."
],
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"(engineering, attributive) A poorly constructed building in China, or the shoddy material(s) used to construct it."
],
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"word": "tofu-dreg"
}
Download raw JSONL data for tofu-dreg meaning in English (4.1kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-10-22 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (eaa6b66 and a709d4b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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