屎

Translingual

Han character

屎 (Kangxi radical 44, 尸+6, 9 strokes, cangjie input 尸火木 (SFD), four-corner 7729₄, composition ⿸尸米)

Derived characters

• 䐖 𡳁 𡳛

References

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 301, character 25
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 7689
• Dae Jaweon: page 598, character 15
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 2, page 973, character 6
• Unihan data for U+5C4E

Chinese

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character 屎
Shang	Western Zhou	Warring States	Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)
Oracle bone script	Bronze inscriptions	Bronze inscriptions	Small seal script

Ideogrammic compound (會意／会意) and phono-semantic compound (形聲／形声, OC *hliʔ, *hri) : phonetic 尸 (OC *hli, “body”) + semantic 米 (“rice”). The 米 component was originally three (, representing 小, as seen in ), four (, representing 少) or five dots (as seen in ) forming a ideogrammic representation of faeces in the oracle bone script, with four dots being the most common variant, thus representing a man defecating with faeces coming out of the backside. The Shang dynasty variants saw the 尸 ("body") component interchangeable with 人 ("human"); later, by the Western Zhou dynasty, 尸 variants with four dots became the dominant and sole-surviving form, however examples from this time period also exist where the 尸 component is mistaken for 尾 ("tail"), as seen in . During the Warring States period, the 少 component became corrupted into 米.

Shuowen Jiezi does not feature the 屎 character, however it does contain 𦳊 and 𡕝. 𦳊 is listed in Shuowen as deriving from 艸 ("grass") and 胃 ("stomach"), while 𡲴 is listed as the ancient form of 徙 (“migration”), however in reality this is not the case; 𡲴 is an erroneous form of the 屎 variant containing 尾, where the tail portion of the 尾 component is mistakenly written as 火. During the Zhou dynasty, 屎 was often used as a phonetic borrowing for 徙 (OC *selʔ); moreover, during the Warring States period, the Chu script character for 徙 consisted of 屎 with an additional 辵 (modern radical form 辶) added to represent the meaning of walking.

Following transition to the clerical script, a variety of alternative forms emerged:

• The 米 component was replaced with phonetic component 矢 (OC *hliʔ) thus creating the variant form 𡱁;
• Some variants added another 米 radical to create 𥻐 and 𥺶;
• Existing variants containing the 尾 component became 𡲔 and 𡱵;
• The body portion of 𡲴 also became further corrupted into 夂 (zhǐ), creating 𡕝;
• The tail portion of 尾-based variants became corrupted into 巛, creating 𡲑;
• The 尸 component corrupted into 广, creating 𢈍;
• Even the variant form 𢈍 became corrupted, where the 广 was simplified into 宀, creating 宩.

All of these variant forms failed to gain widespread usage, and eventually faded into obscurity while 屎 remained the dominant character variant.

Etymology 1

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *kləj (“excrement”).

Pronunciation

Definitions

屎

1. excrement; poop (Classifier: 坨 m; 篤／笃 c; 坺 c; 箍 mn)
2. secretion from the body; tear, earwax, snot, etc.
3. residue; waste; debris
4. (vulgar) worthless; useless; despicable
5. (vulgar) useless thing
6. (Cantonese) bad; poor; of inferior quality

   我啲英文講得好屎。 [Cantonese, trad.]
   我啲英文讲得好屎。 [Cantonese, simp.]

   ngo⁵ di¹ jing¹ man^4-2 gong² dak¹ hou² si².

   I speak terrible English.

Synonyms

• (excrement):

Compounds

Etymology 2

This is a 破讀／破读 (pòdú, “isolated instance of unusual pronunciation”) found in 詩經.

Pronunciation

Definitions

屎

1. ^† Only used in 殿屎 (“to groan”).

References

• Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants (教育部異體字字典), A01086
• “屎”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎, 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–

Japanese

Kanji

(uncommon “Hyōgai” kanji)

1. excrement, feces, poop

Readings

• Go-on: し (shi)
• Kan-on: し (shi)
• Kun: くそ (kuso, 屎); ばば (baba, 屎)

Etymology 1

⟨kuso₁⟩ → /kuso/

From Old Japanese, from Proto-Japonic *kusau. Cognate with 臭い (kusai, “stinky, smelly”), 腐る (kusaru, “to rot, to become stinky”).

Pronunciation

• (Tokyo) くそ​ (Odaka – )
• IPA^(key):

Noun

屎(くそ) • (kuso) 

1. (colloquial) feces, excrement

Derived terms

Idioms

Interjection

屎(くそ) • (kuso) 

1. (swear word) shit

Usage notes

This is not considered as profane as the English glosses. For instance, a child of five using the Japanese interjection kuso would be unremarkable, whereas it would be very socially inappropriate for a child of five to use the English interjection shit.

Prefix

屎(くそ) • (kuso-) 

1. A derogatory prefix.

   屎(くそ)爺(じじ)い

   kusojijī

   crappy old man

Suffix

屎(くそ) • (-kuso) 

1. A derogatory emphasizing suffix.

   下手(へた)屎(くそ)

   hetakuso

   crappy bad at something; to be shit at doing something

   襤褸(ぼろ)屎(くそ)

   borokuso

   broken down for shit, raggedy-ass

Etymology 2

Appears to derive from baby talk. Compare English poopoo and Mandarin 㞎㞎 (bǎba).

Pronunciation

• (Tokyo) ばば (Heiban – )
• (Tokyo) ばば​ (Odaka – )
• IPA^(key):

Noun

屎(ばば) • (baba) 

1. (children's word): poopoo, poop, dookie
2. (children's word): something unclean

Idioms

References

Korean

Hanja

屎 (eumhun 똥 시 (ttong si))

1. Hanja form^? of 시 (“feces, excrement”).

屎 (eumhun 끙끙거릴 히 (kkeungkkeunggeoril hi))

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

Vietnamese

Han character

屎: Hán Nôm readings: thỉ, xái

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