character question

[Rich]

Saw a charecter on someones back and asked them what it stood for and they said power. But when I looked it up on here I got more then just that. This is what I got: [1] power; force; influence; strength [2] [n] tendency; trend [3] the natural features [4] [n] situation; circumstances; aspect; conditions [5] signs; gestures [6] male genitals. My question is on #6 male genitals. Does this emply masculinity or something else? Thanks.

[Dylan Sung]

Do you mean the following character?

http://www.chineselanguage.org/cgi-bin/ ... in,english

In normal everyday usage, it means the power and influence that someone may wield. The other meanings are rare, and to be honest with you, the sixth meaning 'male genitals' for me, is virtually obscure.

Looking at the other dictionaries linked to the page, you find it appearing as item 7 in

http://140.111.1.22/mandr/clc/dict/dict ... eryString=?

This says

'male animal reproductive organ' 'qu shi, jinshu juan 30, xing fa zhi []

Now the latter bit which I've not translated can be referenced here

http://140.111.1.22/mandr/clc/dict/dict ... eryString=?

and instead of qu shi, it's been romanised as chiu shi, a sign that it is pretty archaic. In fact the translation of the explanation

1. one type of ancient official punishment. The punishment involves cutting off of the male reproductive organ.


So, the word in regards to 'male genitalia' is rare. It is found in the histories, jin shu mentioned above is the Books of the Jin Dynasty (circa 265 - 420 AD). So, I don't think it has much bearing on the true meaning of 'power' in Chinese.

Dyl.

[Rich]

Thank you for clarifying that for me. It looked like a cool tattoo and I wanted to make sure that the whole male genitale thing wasn't a big part of the translation.
THanks again
Rich