Taxonomy of meanings for 宰:
- 宰 zǎi (OC: tsɯɯʔ MC: tsəi) 作亥切 上 廣韻：【冢宰又制也亦姓孔子弟子宰予作亥切四 】
Additional information about 宰
說文解字: 【宰】，辠人在屋下執事者。从宀、从辛。辛，辠也。 【作亥切】
- Criteria
- COOK
1. The standard word for a person in charge of the preparation of food is páo 庖.
2. Zǎi 宰 often refers to what appears to be a kind of head butler serving up formal meals, but the meaning of this word is often difficult to distinguish from the other function of "head official, head administrator".
3. Perhaps the most general word for preparing food is chuī 炊. See BOIL, ROAD, FRY, STIR-FRY, GRILL, STEAM, BAKE
NB: There is a strikingly large number of binomes like páo rén 庖人 and páo zǎi 庖宰 referring to the cook in ancient China.
- SERVANT
1. The general word for a servant is chén 臣. But the meaning of this term is typically general. See SUBJECT.
2. Shì 仕 is a permanent employee of some status, normally a literate person.
3. Lì 吏 is an executive official.
4. Huàn 宦 refers at an early stage to the person in charge of the servant corps in a household; in imperial times the word came to refer to the head of the imperial household. In later Han times the word came to refer to eunuchs.
5. Zǎi 宰 refers to the position of the head of a senior household in early times, in charge of the various huàn 宦. The title was also used in the imperial hierarchy as a vague bureaucratic title, translatable perhaps as "political secretary".
- KILL
1. The overwhelmingly dominant term referring to any form of taking the life of anything is shā 殺.
2. Some words specify the range of objects murdered: Thus shì 弒 refers to the killing of a reigning ruler, zhū 誅 and yí 夷 refer to the killing of a convicted criminal; zǎi 宰 and tú3 屠 refer primarily to the slaughtering of animals for the purpose of food production.
3. Some words specify the number of objects killed: yí 夷, zú 族, jiān 殲 tú 屠 (when applied to humans) refer to the killing of groups of people. See PUNISHMENT. The other words refer normally to the killing of one person or a specified set of several persons.
4. Some words specify modes of killing: cì 刺 is to murder by stabbing with a pointed object, typically a dagger; liè 裂 and jiě 解 refer to dismembering by a wide variety of methods; zhèn 鴆 refers to poisoning; jǐng 剄 refers to cutting the throat; xī 腊 refers to killing followed by making a person into minced meat; rèn 刃 is to kill with a sword; jiǎo 絞 and yì 縊 refer to strangulation, è4 mèi 扼昧 and refer to strangulation; è 餓 can refer to starving someone to death. For a more detailed account of the varieties of death penalties in ancient China see PUNISHMENT.