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先生

Mandarin · pinyin xiān sheng

teacher
gentleman; sir; mister (Mr.)
husband
(dialect) doctor
Classifier: 位 wèi

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Characters in this entry

先: xiān · first, former, previous
生: shēng · life, living, lifetime; birth

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

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Mandarin tones

1–5 · xian1 sheng5

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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 · 13 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

sin1 saang1

Cantonese word readings for 先生. 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

mister; sir; gentleman
husband
An honorific for a person of virtue, learning, or ability (usually conferred on males).
(honorific in Mandarin, Jin; common in Cantonese, Gan, Hakka, Min) teacher
(dated) Usually placed after a profession of fortune-telling, storytelling, face reading, feng shui, or something similar.
(dated) bookkeeper
(Gan, Hakka, Min, dated in Mandarin and Jin) doctor
(Gan, Hakka, Min, dated in Mandarin and Jin) doctor — (dialectal) traditional Chinese medicine physician
(literary) scholar; intellectual; man of letters
(literary) Taoist priest
(literary) senior family member, especially one's father or elder brother
(obsolete or Wu) female prostitute
(literal, Classical) one who was born earlier

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

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