薪

xīn

fuel, firewood; salary/stipend

Meaning

  • Fuel or firewood: Specifically brushwood, twigs, or gathered scrub intended for burning.
  • Salary or stipend: Official pay or government remuneration (e.g., 薪俸).
  • Metaphorical extension: In the compound 薪火 ("fuel and fire"), it denotes the means of transmission—the effort or material required to maintain a tradition or teaching across generations.

Distinctions

  • Distinguished from structural timber by its function as a combustible.

Translator notes

  • Sense selection is typically determined by setting: domestic/natural (fuel), institutional/official (salary), or abstract/intellectual (transmission).
  • The conceptual link between the material and administrative senses is "sustenance"—the basic requirement for survival, whether as heat or currency.

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