沈

See also 沉, 瀋, and 渖

Translingual

Etymology

沈, meaning "to sink", is pronounced shen. 沈 is also a simplification of 瀋, meaning "juice" or "liquid." 沈 as surname character cannot be written as 沉 or 瀋.

Han character

沈 (radical 85 水+4, 7 strokes, cangjie input 水中月山 (ELBU), four-corner 3411₂)

1. sink, submerge
2. addicted to
3. used as a surname
4. juice, liquid, water, leak, pour

• Name Meaning: Men Who Don't Yield to Power

• Origins of Surname 沈
  1. Tradition says that the Shen Clan are the descendants of the legendary Emperor Huang Di, while the Zheng Clan are the descendants of Emperor ZhuanXu.
  2. Descendants of Shao Hao. The grandson of Shao Hao was the king’s teacher, and he had two sons, Yun Ge and Tai Dai. Tai Dai was awarded the land of ShanXi, for his achievements in fighting the flood, during Zhuan Xu’s reign. The descendants of Tai Dai were divided into four tribes, Shen, Yi, Ru, and Huang, known as the four kingdoms. The Shen kingdom was in RuNan of HeNan. In 506 B.C., all the northern kingdoms formed an alliance in their effort to fight the Chu kingdom. The Shen kingdom did not participate and was eliminated by the Cai kingdom. From then on, its people began to bear the last name Shen.
  3. The youngest brother of Zhou Wu Wang, Ran Ji, was awarded the kingdom of Shen, for his achievement of suppressing the rebellion following his brother’s death. His descendants also have the last name Shen.
  4. Yet another origin came from the last name Mi. During Chun Qiu, The great grandson of Chu Jon Wang, Shu, was the governor of the town of Shen, and was known as Shen Yin Shu. Shen Yin Shu later became a high ranking official and was highly regarded because of his contribution in getting rid of corrupted officials like Fei Wuji and Yan Jiang Shi. His descendants also have the last name Shen.
  5. Original definition was water workers but the meaning changed during the Mongol Dynasty.

• Hometown: Wu Qing in ZheJiang province. Along the Yangtze river between Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai

References

• KangXi: page 610, character 6
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 17189
• Dae Jaweon: page 1002, character 15
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 3, page 1572, character 7
• Unihan data for U+6C88

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Cantonese

Hanzi

沈 (traditional 瀋, Yale sam2)

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Japanese

Kanji

沈 (common “Jōyō” kanji)

Readings

• On: ちん (chin), じん (jin), しん (shin)
• Kun: しずむ (shizumu), しずめる (shizumeru)

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Korean

Hanja

沈 (hangeul 침, 심, revised chim, sim, McCune-Reischauer ch'im, sim, Yale chim, sim)

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Mandarin

Hanzi

沈 (traditional 瀋, pinyin shěn (shen3), Wade-Giles shen³)