生
Meanings
- to grow; to give birth; to produce; to be born
- to arise; to occur
- to light (a fire)
- to live; to be alive
- life
- raw; uncooked; unprocessed
- unfamiliar; strange
- (bound form) student; person engaged in a field
- (bound form) male role in traditional opera
- (bound form) life; lifetime
- (bound form) means of livelihood
- (bound form) very; intensely (as in 生疼 shēng téng)
- (bound form) in a forced manner (as in 生拉硬拽 shēng lā yìng zhuài)
Characters in this entry
- 生
- shēng · life, living, lifetime; birth
Explore the spelling
Mandarin tones
1 · sheng1
Compare attested words with these syllables ↗Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.
Connected dictionary
Sentences in context
Exact source-spelling matches. Open the reader for dictionary lookups, construction notes and related examples. Occurrence does not establish a particular dictionary sense.
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 · 43 senses · 2 Cantonese readings
Rime Cantonese 粵拼
saang1 · sang1
Cantonese word readings for 生. 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 · Etymology 1
- to live; to subsist; to exist
- to grow; to develop; to bud
- (transitive) to bear; to give birth; to bring up; to rear
- to be born; to come into existence
- (dialectal) to lay (an egg)
- pupil; disciple; student
- (historical) scholar; Confucian scholar
- (opera) actor or male character
- (abbreviation, alt-of) short for 先生 (xiānshēng, “gentleman”)
- short for 先生 (xiānshēng, “gentleman”) — (Cantonese, honorific, suffix) short for 先生 (xiānshēng, “Mr.”)
- having life; live
- life; existence; being; living
- fresh; not stale
- unripe
- raw; uncooked
- unprocessed; unrefined; crude
- (historical ethnography) uncultured; uncultivated; wild; uncivilized; savage
- strange; unfamiliar; unacquainted
- mechanically; forcedly
- very; quite; extremely
- vivid; strong; forceful
- innate; natural; born with
- (obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese) original form of 性 (xìng, “intelligence; natural endowment”)
- living things; organism
- livelihood; subsistence
- lifetime; all one's life
- birthday; anniversary
- birthday; anniversary — (Hokkien) birthday of a god or deity
- to bring back to life; to revive; to rescue
- to generate; to breed; to create
- to manufacture; to produce
- to happen; to occur; to take place
- to catch (a disease)
- (transitive) to be infested by a parasite
- (Buddhism) to go into society; to be reincarnated
- (dialectal) to set up; to put in; to settle
- to light; to ignite (a fire)
- (Hokkien) wild and unpleasant (of the taste of cooked food)
- (Hokkien) looks; features; appearance
- a surname
character · Etymology 1
- (Cantonese) only used in 架生
character · Etymology 2
- (music) Cantonese opera gongche notation for the note high do (1̇).
character · Etymology 3
- (Hong Kong, honorific, suffix) -san, when referring to a Japanese person
Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack