屎
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Translingual
Han character
屎 (Kangxi radical 44, 尸+6, 9 strokes, cangjie input 尸火木 (SFD), four-corner 77294, composition ⿸尸米)
Derived characters
- 䐖 𡳁 𡳛
References
- KangXi: page 301, character 25
- Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 7689
- Dae Jaweon: page 598, character 15
- Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 2, page 973, character 6
- Unihan data for U+5C4E
Chinese
trad. | 屎 | |
---|---|---|
simp. # | 屎 | |
alternative forms |
Glyph origin
Historical forms of the character 屎 | |||
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Shang | Western Zhou | Warring States | Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han) |
Oracle bone script | Bronze inscriptions | Bronze inscriptions | Small seal script |
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Ideogrammic compound (會意) and phono-semantic compound (形聲, OC *hliʔ, *hri) : phonetic 尸 (OC *hli, “body”) + semantic 米 (“rice”). The 米 component was originally three (, representing 小, as seen in
), four (
, representing 少) or five dots (as seen in
) forming a ideogrammic representation of faeces in the oracle bone script, with four dots being the most common variant, thus representing a man defecating with faeces coming out of the backside. The Shang dynasty variants saw the 尸 ("body") component interchangeable with 人 ("human"); later, by the Western Zhou dynasty, 尸 variants with four dots became the dominant and sole-surviving form, however examples from this time period also exist where the 尸 component is mistaken for 尾 ("tail"), as seen in
. During the Warring States period, the 少 component became corrupted[1] into 米.
Shuowen Jiezi does not feature the 屎 character, however it does contain 𦳊 and 𡕝. 𦳊 is listed in Shuowen as deriving from 艸 ("grass") and 胃 ("stomach"), while 𡲴 is listed as the ancient form of 徙 (“migration”), however in reality this is not the case; 𡲴 is an erroneous form of the 屎 variant containing 尾, where the tail portion of the 尾 component is mistakenly written as 火. During the Zhou dynasty, 屎 was often used as a phonetic borrowing for 徙 (OC *selʔ); moreover, during the Warring States period, the Chu script character for 徙 consisted of 屎 with an additional 辵 (modern radical form 辶) added[1] to represent the meaning of walking.
Following transition to the clerical script, a variety of alternate forms emerged:
- The 米 component was replaced with phonetic component 矢 (OC *hliʔ) thus creating the variant form 𡱁;
- Some variants added another 米 radical to create 𥻐 and 𥺶;
- Existing variants containing the 尾 component became 𡲔 and 𡱵;
- The body portion of 𡲴 also became further corrupted into 夂 (zhǐ), creating 𡕝;
- The tail portion of 尾-based variants became corrupted into 巛, creating 𡲑;
- The 尸 component corrupted into 广, creating 𢈍;
- Even the variant form 𢈍 became corrupted, where the 广 was simplified into 宀, creating 宩.
All of these variant forms failed to gain widespread usage, and eventually faded into obscurity while 屎 remained the dominant character variant.
Etymology 1
From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *kləj (“excrement”).
Pronunciation
Definitions
屎
Synonyms
Compounds
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Pronunciation
Definitions
屎
- † Only used in 殿屎 (“to groan”).
References
- Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants (教育部異體字字典), A01086
- “屎”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database), 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–
- Li Shoukui (李守奎) (April 2015), ““屎”與“徙之古文”考 [On the ancient glyphs of “屎” and “徙”]”, in 出土文獻, volume 6, Tsinghua University, archived from the original on 2021-01-11, pages 154-162
Japanese
Etymology 1
Kanji in this term |
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屎 |
くそ Hyōgaiji |
kun’yomi |
⟨kuso1⟩ → /kuso/
From Old Japanese,[1] from Proto-Japonic *kusau. Cognate with 臭い (kusai, “stinky, smelly”), 腐る (kusaru, “to rot, to become stinky”).[2]
Alternative forms
Derived terms
- 屎っ垂れ (kusottare): dingleberry (vulgar epithet)
- 目屎 (mekuso): rheum, eye mucus
Idioms
- 屎にする (kuso ni suru): “to turn something into shit; to treat something as shit” → to make something worthless; to treat something as worthless
- 屎の役にも立たぬ (kuso no yaku ni mo tatanu): “not even standing in the role of shit” → not even good for shit
- (See 役に立つ (yaku ni tatsu): “to be useful, to play a role”)
- 屎も味噌も一緒 (kuso mo miso mo issho): “both crap and miso together” → a situation where it is difficult to tell the good from the bad
Usage notes
This is not considered as profane as the English glosses. For instance, a child of five using the Japanese interjection kuso would be unremarkable, whereas it would be very socially inappropriate for a child of five to use the English interjection shit.
Suffix
屎 • (-kuso)
- A derogatory emphasizing suffix.
- 下手屎
- hetakuso
- crappy bad at something; to be shit at doing something
- 襤褸屎
- borokuso
- broken down for shit, raggedy-ass
- 下手屎
Etymology 2
Kanji in this term |
---|
屎 |
ばば Hyōgaiji |
kun’yomi |
Appears to derive from baby talk.[2][3] Compare English poopoo.
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
Idioms
- 猫屎する (nekobabasuru): to sweep something under the rug → to hide a problem without actually dealing with it (from how a cat will bury its poop)
References
- National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (2020), “Old Japanese kuswo”, in Oxford-NINJAL Corpus of Old Japanese
- 1988, 国語大辞典(新装版) (Kokugo Dai Jiten, Revised Edition) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan
- 2006, 大辞林 (Daijirin), Third Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN
- 1998, NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 (NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: NHK, →ISBN