Taxonomy of meanings for 獄:　　

Additional information about 獄

說文解字: 【獄】，确也。从犾、从言，二犬所以守也。 〔小徐本作「从犾、言聲。」 【魚欲切】

Criteria
• PRISON
  

  1. The current general single-character word for a government prison is 獄, but this word first became current in Han times.

  2. Líng yǔ 囹圄／囹圉 is the standard pre-Qin word for a state prison.

  3. Láo 牢 is a colloquial word for an official prison.

  4. Àn 犴 refers originally to a fierce dog a statue of which was a guardian at prisons, but the name of this dog was then occasionally used by synecdoche as a word for a prison.

  5. Huán tǔ 圜土 refers to a small walled city-like compound that serves as a prison.

  6. Jiàn 轞 refers to a prisoner carriage. See PRISON VEHICLE

• PUNISH
  

  1. The general word for punishment is wú xíng 五刑, traditionally in SHU, LYUXING listed as "dà pí 大辟 "decapitation", yuè 刖 "mutilation of foot", yì 劓, gōng 宮 "castration", mò 墨 "branding". The list varied through time and is different in different sources.

  2. Xíng 刑 refers specifically to physical punishment.

  3. Fá 罰 refers to non-physical forms of punishment including typically fines. See FINE

  4. Yù 獄 can be used to refer to any kind of punitive action taken against criminals.

  5. Fǎ 法 can occasionally be used, mainly in early texts, to refer not to criminal law but to the application of such laws to criminals.

  6. Zuò 坐 refers to a condemned person being held responsible for a criminal act and being punished. See CONDEMN

  7. Tǎo 討 is a moralistic term referring to a momentous act of punishment in the name of justice, and the meaning often vascillates between ATTACK and PUNISH, when the reference is a punitive attack. See ATTACK

• LITIGATE
  

  1. The general word for any lawsuit one person takes out against another is sòng 訟.

  2. Yù 獄 typically refers specifically to a criminal lawsuit.

Word relations
• Assoc: (LITIGATE)訟/LITIGATE The general word for any lawsuit of any kind is sòng 訟. 1 Attribution