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上座

Mandarin · pinyin shàng zuò

seat of honor (at a banquet, meeting etc)
(Buddhism) senior monk's seat or title

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Characters in this entry

上: shàng · top; superior, highest; go up, send up
座: zuò · seat; stand, base

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

4–4 · shang4 zuo4

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

soeng6 zo6

Cantonese word readings for 上座. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

noun

(literary) seat of honor

verb

to take one's seat
(of restaurants, theatres, etc.) to have customers come in continuously

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

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