貞

貞 (Kangxi radical 154, 貝+2, 9 strokes, cangjie input 卜月山金 (YBUC), four-corner 2180₆, composition ⿱⺊貝)

• 偵, 媜, 幀, 揁, 湞, 楨, 禎, 碵, 緽, 赬, 䡠, 鍞, 遉, 寊

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 1204, character 3
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 36658
• Dae Jaweon: page 1665, character 4
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 6, page 3622, character 3
• Unihan data for U+8C9E

Pictogram (象形) - a ding (oracle bone script , ; same as 鼎 (OC *kleːŋʔ)). Borrowed phonetically for “to divine”; however, bronze tripods in ancient China were sometimes used during rituals. Later, a new character was created by adding 卜 (“to divine”) as a radical, hence a semantic component, thus getting 鼑 (oracle bone script ; bronze script . The bottom component was stylized into the unrelated 貝 during the Warring States. Compare 𠟭 > 則.

Various comparisons have been proposed. Within Chinese, it has been compared to 偵 (OC *tʰeŋ, “to test; to detect”) (Schuessler, 2007), 正 (OC *tjeŋs, “correct; right”) (Sagart and Ma, 2020). Outside of Chinese, it has been compared to Tibetan དྲང་པོ (drang po, “straight”) (Sagart, 2020b).

貞

1. virtuous; chaste; pure
2. loyal; faithful

   忠貞／忠贞  ―  zhōngzhēn  ―  loyal and steadfast

3. (obsolete) to divine

   • 辛未貞：𠦪禾于河，尞三牢，沉三牛，宜牢。 [Pre-Classical Chinese, trad.]
     辛未贞：𠦪禾于河，尞三牢，沉三牛，宜牢。 [Pre-Classical Chinese, simp.]

     From: 12th century BCE, Oracle bone Heji 32028

     Xīnwèi zhēn: hū hé yú hé, liáo sān láo, chén sān niú, yí láo. [Pinyin]

     Xīnwèi [day 8] divining: pray for the harvest to Hé, making a burnt offering of three penned oxen, submerging three oxen, and put the penned oxen on the sacrificial table.

   • 季冬，陳玉以貞來歲之媺惡。 [Traditional Chinese poetry, trad.]
     季冬，陈玉以贞来岁之媺恶。 [Traditional Chinese poetry, simp.]

     From: Rites of Zhou, circa 3^rd century BCE

     Jìdōng, chén yù yǐ zhēn láisuì zhī měi'è. [Pinyin]

     In the last month of winter, set out precious stones and divine the good and ill of the year to come.

• “貞”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎^[1], 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–
• Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants (教育部異體字字典), A03928

(Jōyō kanji)

1. virtue, faithfulness, uprighteousness
2. chastity

• Go-on: ちょう (chō)
• Kan-on: てい (tei, Jōyō)
• Kan’yō-on: じょう (jō)
• Kun: ただしい (tadashii, 貞しい)
• Nanori: さだ (sada)

貞 • (jeong) (hangeul 정, revised jeong, McCune–Reischauer chŏng, Yale ceng)

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

貞: Hán Nôm readings: trinh, riêng, tranh

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.