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師爺

简师爷 · 繁師爺

Mandarin · pinyin shī yé

(historical) privately hired legal or administrative advisor to a government official
teacher's teacher (in academic lineage)

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Characters in this entry

師: shī · teacher, master, specialist; multitude, troops; hexagram ䷆
爺: Look up this written character
师: shī · teacher, master, specialist
爷: yé · father, grandfather

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

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Mandarin tones

1–2 · shi1 ye2

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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.

師爺 · find source passages ↗ · 师爷 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 4 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

si1 je4

Cantonese word readings for 師爺. 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

(historical) private assistant or adviser attending to legal, fiscal, or secretarial duties in a local yamen
(regional, dated) lawyer
(Hong Kong) legal executive

noun

teacher's teacher or father

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

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