殺

• Lethal violence: To kill, slaughter, or murder.
• Non-lethal harm: To wound, hurt, or cause injury.
• Reduction/Subtraction: To pare off, clip, reduce, or diminish (e.g., suppressing a symptom in medical contexts).

Denotes an active process involving an agent and typically a tool; it represents the act of bringing about damage or death through intervention, as distinguished from 死 (sǐ), which refers to the state of death.

Distinguished from 煞 (shà): while these may be interchangeable in later periods or specific folk/astrological contexts, 殺 typically refers to a concrete act of slaughter, whereas 煞 often refers to malignant influences or cosmic forces.

• Semantic variant: U+22FF9
• Simplified variant: 杀 (U+6740)