OpenCidian by Perxel: an open Chinese-Vietnamese dictionary. Look up words by hanzi, pinyin or Vietnamese; Hán Việt, pinyin and Vietnamese meaning per word; characters with their parts; annotate a Chinese text word by word. Every field says which source it came from. Read-only, no sign-in. Data CC BY-SA 4.0 (credit "OpenCidian by Perxel"); about and how to connect: /llms.txt.
https://opencidian-mcp.perxel.com/mcp
Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste the URL above.
Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http opencidian https://opencidian-mcp.perxel.com/mcp
| Name | Title | Description | Access | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
lookup | Look up a Chinese word | Dictionary entries for a Chinese word, a pinyin syllable or a Vietnamese word: simplified and traditional forms, pinyin, Hán Việt per character (Thiều Chửu), Vietnamese senses (CVDICT), English senses (CC-CEDICT), HSK level. Every field carries `src`, the source it came from. `kinds` says how the query was read and each entry's `match` which reading found it. `vi: null` means CVDICT has no Vietnamese for that word: say so, don't translate the English as if it were the dictionary's. No entries means the word isn't in the dictionary: say so, don't guess. | public | What does 觉得 mean in Vietnamese, and what is its Hán Việt? |
get_character | One Chinese character | Everything known about one character: Hán Việt readings (Thiều Chửu first, Unihan when Thiều Chửu has none), pinyin readings, a short English gloss, stroke count, radical, its parts (decomposition) and how it was formed (etymology: the meaning part and the sound part, each with its Hán Việt), and its traditional or simplified forms. Every field carries `src`. For the words a character is in, use words_with; for a character used as a word, lookup. | public | What are the Hán Việt readings and the parts of 觉? |
words_with | Words that contain a character | Words of two characters or more that contain a character (simplified or traditional), HSK words first, then shorter words. Each comes as a full entry: pinyin, Hán Việt, Vietnamese and English senses, HSK level, `src` per field. | public | Which common words contain 觉? |
search_meaning | Chinese words for a meaning | Vietnamese or English → Chinese: entries whose Vietnamese (CVDICT) or English (CC-CEDICT) senses match the meaning, HSK words first. These are candidates, not one translation: compare their senses and HSK levels before picking one, and say when several fit. | public | How do you say “cảm thấy” in Chinese? |
annotate_text | Annotate a Chinese text | Splits Chinese text into words (longest match against the dictionary) and gives each its pinyin, Hán Việt per character, Vietnamese and English senses and entry `id`. `kind` is word, unknown (Chinese not in the dictionary: say so) or other (punctuation, Latin, digits). `otherReadings` > 0 means the word has more readings than the one shown: look it up when the reading matters. The split is by dictionary match, not grammar, and can be wrong (哪国人 comes out 哪 + 国人): check a split that changes the meaning. | public | Give the pinyin, Hán Việt and meaning of each word in 他觉得北京很好。 |
about | About OpenCidian's data | The dataset's version and build date, its licence (CC BY-SA 4.0), the full attribution to quote when reusing it, and every source with its pinned version and licence (CC-CEDICT, CVDICT, Thiều Chửu, Unihan, Make Me a Hanzi, the HSK lists). Use it to say where an answer comes from or how to cite OpenCidian. | public | Where does OpenCidian's data come from, and how do I cite it? |
OpenCidian MCP v0.1.0 · Contact: https://github.com/OpenCidian