獅

獅 (Kangxi radical 94, 犬+10, 13 strokes, cangjie input 大竹竹口月 (KHHRB), four-corner 4122₇, composition ⿰犭師)

• 𥵍

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 717, character 10
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 20609
• Dae Jaweon: page 1128, character 25
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 2, page 1363, character 4
• Unihan data for U+7345

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 / 形声, OC *sri): semantic 犭 (“dog; beast”) + phonetic 師 (OC *sri).

Originally written as 師. Earliest written attestations in the Eastern Han era include the Book of Han [before 111], the surviving portion of the Dongguan Hanji [c. 150], and Lokakṣema's translation of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā [179]. The term is possibly of Iranian origin. In the Book of Han, the lion was described as indigenous to the historical 烏弋山離 (OC *qaː lɯɡ sreːn rel, “Alexandria”), possibly Alexandria Prophthasia (Yu, 1998), which was part of the Parthian Empire at the time. The Dongguan mentions a lion as a gift from the Shule Kingdom in the year 133, where a Saka language was spoken then. Earlier definite dates associated with the lion mentioned in the Book of the Later Han include the year 87, when a gift lion from the Yuezhi was recorded.

Compare Proto-Iranian *cárguš (“lion”). Possibly related to 狻猊 (OC *sloːn ŋeː).

Meanwhile, Adams (2013) postulates possible Tocharian connections; cf. Tocharian B ṣecake and etymologies.

獅

1. lion

• Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants (教育部異體字字典), A02534
• “獅”, 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.
• “Entry #14529”, in 臺灣客語辭典 [Dictionary of Taiwan Hakka] (overall work in Chinese and Hakka), Ministry of Education, R.O.C., 2022.
• 莆田市荔城区档案馆 [Putian City Licheng District Archives], editor (2022), “狮”, in 莆仙方言文读字汇 [Puxian Dialect Literary Reading Dictionary] (overall work in Mandarin and Puxian Min), page 210.

(Jinmeiyō kanji)

1. a lion

• Go-on: し (shi)
• Kan-on: し (shi)

From Middle Chinese 獅 (MC srij).

• IPA^(key): [ɕi]

獅(し) • (shi) 

1. lion

Very rarely used on its own. The shishi reading is almost always spelled as 獅子.

From Middle Chinese 獅 (MC srij). Recorded as Middle Korean ᄉᆞ (so) (Yale: so) in Hunmong Jahoe (訓蒙字會 / 훈몽자회), 1527.

Wikisource

獅 (eumhun 사자 사 (saja sa))

1. hanja form^? of 사 (“lion”)

• 국제퇴계학회 대구경북지부 (國際退溪學會 大邱慶北支部) (2007). Digital Hanja Dictionary, 전자사전／電子字典. [1]

獅: Hán Việt readings: sư^[1][2][3]
獅: Nôm readings: sư^[4][5][6]

1. chữ Hán form of sư (“lion”)