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臣

Mandarin · pinyin chén#

state official or subject in dynastic China
I, your servant (used in addressing the sovereign)
Kangxi radical 131

Mandarin · pinyin Chén#

surname Chen

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臣: chén · minister, statesman, official; Kangxi radical 131

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

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Mandarin tones

2 · chen2

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1character link28same-tone records

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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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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

san4

Cantonese word readings for 臣. 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.

character

(obsolete) slave; servant; captive
minister; statesman; official (in feudal society)
(more broadly) subjects of a monarch
to make a subject
(humble, historical or archaic) I, me; your servant (humble pronoun, especially when speaking to a monarch)
a surname
(chiefly Cantonese) a respelling of the English patronymic son

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

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