DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT
族
Mandarin · pinyin zú
Meanings
- race
- nationality
- ethnicity
- clan
- by extension, social group (e.g. office workers 上班族)
Characters in this entry
- 族
- zú · a family clan, ethnic group, tribe
Explore the spelling
Mandarin tones
2 · zu2
Compare attested words with these syllables ↗Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.
Connected dictionary
1character link12same-tone records
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.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.
Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 9 senses · 2 Cantonese readings
Rime Cantonese 粵拼
cau3 · zuk6
Cantonese word readings for 族. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.
CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack
Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section
Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.
character
- clan; family clan; tribe
- ethnic group; nationality
- group or class of things with common features
- (literary) normal; average; usual
- (historical) to impose a death penalty on an offender and his entire family, and even on the families of his mother and wife
- (literary) to gather
- (archaic, of a family) to be exterminated (as a form of punishment in imperial China, and within the Sinosphere)
- (Taiwan, specifically) the Taiwanese indigenous peoples
character
- (obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese) alternative form of 奏 (zòu)
Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack