Shimingとは 意味・読み方・使い方

The Shìmíng (Chinese: 釋名/释名; Wade–Giles: Shih Ming; "Explaining Names" or "Explanation of Names") is a Chinese dictionary that employed phonological glosses, and "is believed to date from c. 200 [CE]" (Miller 1980: 424). Its 1502 definitions attempt to establish semantic connections based upon puns between the word being defined and the word defining it, which is often followed with an explanation. For instance (chapter 12: 愛哀也愛乃思念之也), "Love (ài 愛 "love; like; be fond of") is sorrow (āi "哀 sorrow; grief; lament"). If you love, then you remember fondly." The Chinese call these paronomastic glosses yínxùn (音訓; yin-hsün; "sound teaching"), meaning "to use the pronunciation of a word to explain its meaning." This semantic association of like-sounding words goes back to the "Rectification of Names" (zhēngmíng 正名, discussed under Confucianism), which hypothesized a connection between names and reality. The Shìmíng preface explains this ancient Chinese theory of language.