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下士

Mandarin · pinyin xià shì

lowest-ranked noncommissioned officer (e.g. corporal in the army or petty officer, third class in the navy)

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Characters in this entry

下: xià · under, underneath, below; down; inferior; bring down
士: shì · scholar, gentleman; soldier

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

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Mandarin tones

4–4 · xia4 shi4

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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 · 6 senses

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

noun · Etymology 1

corporal (U.S. and British Army, British Air Force, U.S. and British Marine Corps)
petty officer third class (U.S. Navy)
petty officer second class (British Navy)
(archaic) person, especially a member of the educated social classes, who is of inferior standing, intelligence, or ethics

verb · Etymology 1

(xiangqi) to move an adviser (士) back one step diagonally

verb · Etymology 2

(literary, obsolete, of a high-ranking individual) to display humility and respect towards lower-class persons

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

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