子

zǐ

child, offspring; seed; Master; first earthly branch.

Meaning

Kinship: Child or offspring.
Botanical: Seed, nut, or the nucleus of a fruit/plant.
Honorific: Master; used after a surname or as a standalone address for an intellectual authority or teacher.
Cosmological: The first of the twelve earthly branches (地支), designating the direction North or the midnight hour (子時).

Grammar and usage

Primarily functions as a noun.
In later or vernacular-leaning texts, it may appear as a suffix denoting a small object; however, in early classical texts, it generally retains full semantic weight.

History and forms

Variant: U+53EA (clerical or regional stylistic shift).

Graphical notes

The glyph has remained remarkably stable from oracle bone and bronze scripts through to seal script.

Translator notes

Although frequently glossed as "son," the term often functions as a generic descriptor for a young person regardless of gender, or as a categorical head for children in general.

Decontextualized translator aid. This page describes plausible lexical range; it does not choose what the glyph means in a particular passage.