Taxonomy of meanings for 臧:　　

Additional information about 臧

說文解字: 【臧】，善也。从臣、戕聲。 【則郎切】 【𡒥】， 〔小徐本籒文作「【𡒉】」】，。〕 籒文。

Criteria
• GOOD
  

  1. The general term for positive appraisal of human capacities of any kind is shàn 善 (ant. è 惡 "bad").

  2. Rén 仁 (ant. cán 殘 "unfeeling") refers to kind-heartedness as an attitude directed towards moral behaviour. See BENEVOLENCE

  3. Lián 廉 (ant. tān 貪 "greedy for bribery gifts") refers to moral probity and impeccability.

  4. Zhí 直 (ant. qǔ 曲 "devious") refers to moral straightforwardness and uprightness.

  5. Zhōng 衷 (ant. xié 邪 "wicked") refers to devoted uprightness of character. See also EARNEST

  6. Qīng 清 (ant. zhuó 濁 "defiled and corrupt") can be used to refer to moral purity.

  7. Shú 淑 is a highly poetic word referring to admirable moral qualities in general, typically in women.

  8. Jūn zǐ 君子 (ant. xiǎo rén 小人 "petty man") refers to high moral qualities and capacities, especially in men.

  <div>9. Zāng 臧 (pí 否 "good-for-nothing") is an archaic neutral unemotional objective term for goodness.</div><div><br></div><div>10. Rén yì 仁義, when it is not simply listing benevolence and righteousness, commonly refers quite generally (by synecdoche) to moral goodness or the moral virtues LIKE benevolence and righteousness and not in fact to just two of the virtues.<br></div><br>

• SLAVE
  

  1. The standard general word for a dependent low-status servant or slave is nú 奴, and this word became quite currrent in Han times.

  2. Yì 役 tends to focus on the hard labour involved.

  3. Lǔ 虜 focusses prototypically on the prisoner-origins of a slave.

  4. Lì 隸 refers to slaves in an administrative bureaucratic way, and prototypically these menial workers are in public employment, being thus of higher status than mere shepherds or stable-boys in the countryside.

  5. Zānghuò 臧獲 is the standard exampe of the name of a slave.

  Slavery and servant-hood not always easy to distinguish, and this is for very interesting social reasons. A scheme for the place of menials in the status system is systematised in a crucial ZUO Zhao 7 passage:

  故王臣公，公臣大夫，大夫臣士，士臣皁，皁臣輿，輿臣隸，隸臣僚，僚臣僕，僕臣臺。

  馬有圉，牛有牧，

• BRIBE
  

  1. Lù 賂 standardly refers to substantial active bribery of any kind, including the offer of singing girls, music masters, and quite frequently territory as well as imortant ritual objects like tripods and bells, but also in this case the word is used for presents one cannot plausibly construe as straightforward bribes. See GIFT and GIVE.

  2. Huì 賄 refers to customary gifts on formal occasions which are often hard to distinguish from bribes, and characteristically the word regularly refers to passive bribery. See also PROPERTY and GIFT. Commentators wish us to believe that the word refers specifically to "bribe with gifts of silk", but there is no clear early evidence of this.

  3. Huò 貨 refers to any illegal act of making gifts to encourage unlawful actions, and also to the bribes themselves.

  4. Nà 納／內 is the technical term for the receiving of bribes, i.e. passive corruption.

  5. The word qiú 賕, which became current in Han times, refers to active as well as passive corruption.

  6. Zāng 藏 / 臧 and huò lù 貨賂 occasionally refer to bribes received.

Word relations