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私生子

Mandarin · pinyin sī shēng zǐ

illegitimate son

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Characters in this entry

私: sī · private, personal; secret
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

1–1–3 · si1 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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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

si1 sang1 zi2

Cantonese word readings for 私生子. 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

illegitimate child (usually a boy); bastard child; child born out of wedlock; love child

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

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