刣

刣 (Kangxi radical 18, 刀+5, 7 strokes, cangjie input 戈口中弓 (IRLN), composition ⿰台刂)

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 138, character 10
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 1922
• Dae Jaweon: page 311, character 11
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 1, page 332, character 3
• Unihan data for U+5223

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 / 形声): phonetic 台 + semantic 刂 (“knife”).

刣

1. (obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese) to pare; to scrape

Often considered a substrate word. Compare (Deng, 1994, Schuessler, 2007):

• Proto-Hmong-Mien *təjH (“to kill”) ~ Proto-Hmong-Mien *dəjH (“to die”)
  • White Hmong tua (“to kill”)
  • White Hmong tuag (“to die”)
• Proto-Austronesian *pa-aCay (“to kill”) ~ Proto-Austronesian *ma-aCay (“to die”)
  • Amis patay (“to die; death”)
  • Cebuano patay (“dead; to kill”)
  • Tagalog patay (“dead; corpse; carcass”); matay (“dying”); katay (“a slaughtering; a killing”); bitay (“hanging (means of execution)”)
• Proto-Tai *p.taːjᴬ (“to die”)
  • Thai ตาย (dtaai, “to die”)

Norman (1979) suggests that this derives from 治 (MC dri, “to regulate; to clean (fish)”) instead. This usage is still used in some Mandarin dialects (usually meaning “to clean (fish)”) and Hakka chhṳ̀ (“to slaughter (livestock)”), often written as 㓾.

Alternatively, some have suggested that 夷 (MC yij, “to be level; to pacify; to kill”) is the original character.

刣

1. (Hakka, Min) to slaughter (an animal)

   刣豬／刣猪 [Hokkien]  ―  thâi ti [Pe̍h-ōe-jī]  ―  to slaughter a pig

   刣豬／刣猪 [Eastern Min]  ―  tài-*dṳ̆ / [tʰai⁵³⁻⁵⁵ ty⁵⁵] [Bàng-uâ-cê / IPA]  ―  to slaughter a pig

2. (Fuzhou Eastern Min, Southern Min, Puxian Min) to kill (a person)

   刣死 [Hokkien]  ―  thâi-sí [Pe̍h-ōe-jī]  ―  to kill

   • 人傷我，我刣伊 [Hokkien, trad.]
     人伤我，我刣伊 [Hokkien, simp.]

     From: 巴克禮譯本 (Barclay Amoy Romanized Bible), 創世記 (Genesis) 4:23

     Lâng siong góa, góa thâi i [Pe̍h-ōe-jī]

     for I have slain a man to my wounding

3. (Eastern Min, Southern Min) to cut open

   刣西瓜 [Hokkien]  ―  thâi si-koe [Pe̍h-ōe-jī]  ―  to cut a watermelon

4. (Hokkien) to cut; to gash
5. (Hokkien) to fight a battle; to go to war
6. (Hokkien) to delete; to remove; to cross out
7. (Taiwanese Hokkien) to beat down the price; to haggle

• “刣”, in 教育部臺灣台語常用詞辭典 [Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwanese Taigi] (overall work in Mandarin and Hokkien), Ministry of Education, R.O.C., 2025.