生子

Mandarin · pinyin shēng zǐ

Meanings

  1. to give birth to a child or children
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Characters in this entry

生
shēng · life, living, lifetime; birth
子
zǐ · offspring, child; fruit, seed of; first earthly branch
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–3 · sheng1 zi3

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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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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

verb

  1. (literary) to give birth to a son
  2. (Piling Wu) to lay eggs

noun

  1. (Classical) young adult

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

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