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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

罪

zuì
crime; vice
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 6
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 网
  • 13 strokes

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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 罒 (“net”) + 非 (“mistake”). The original version is 𦋛 and its original meaning was a net for fishing, then used instead of 辠 due to the similarity of the latter character to 皇, which represents the Emperor.

Unclear. Possibly of Sino-Tibetan origin and cognate with Mizo sual (“(adj.) bad, evil, vile, corrupt; (v. tr.) (to attempt) to criminally assault, to rape (a woman)”) (Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese网 “net”
  • ideaChinese非 “not be; is not; not”

Related: Mizo sual

Words built on it: 犯罪

Meanings

character
  1. crime; vice
  2. sin
  3. hardship; suffering
  4. fault

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

罪：捕魚竹网。从网、非。秦以罪爲辠字。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 犯法的行為。也可泛指一般的過失。 例：犯罪、認罪、戴罪立功
  2. 刑罰。 例：負荊請罪、死罪、活罪
  3. 苦痛、苦難。 例：受罪
  4. 責備。 例：怪罪

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 罪 was written 字形演變

  1. 罪 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 罪 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 罪