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犧牲

简牺牲 · 繁犧牲

Mandarin · pinyin xī shēng

to sacrifice one's life
to sacrifice (sth valued)
beast slaughtered as a sacrifice

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Characters in this entry

犧: Look up this written character
牲: shēng · sacrificial animal; animal
牺: xī · sacrifice, give up; sacrificial

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

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Mandarin tones

1–1 · xi1 sheng1

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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.

犧牲 · find source passages ↗ · 牺牲 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

hei1 sang1

Cantonese word readings for 犧牲. 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

sacrifice (animal presented to a deity, deceased ancestor, etc.)

verb

to give one's life for a certain cause; to sacrifice oneself
(figuratively) to sacrifice (give away something valuable); to give up; to abandon; to discard

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

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