赂
Character Story & Explanation
In modern Chinese, 赂 appears almost exclusively in formal, legal, or journalistic contexts—never in casual speech. It features prominently in state media reports on anti-corruption investigations (e.g., '受贿罪' — 'crime of accepting bribes'), and in the PRC Criminal Law Articles 385–393. Common phrases include 行贿 (xíng huì, 'to offer a bribe') and 受贿 (shòu huì, 'to accept a bribe'); 赂 itself rarely stands alone but appears in compounds like 贿赂 (huìlù), the standard term for 'bribery'.
The character’s form is not pictographic but phono-semantic: left radical 贝 (shell/money), right component 各 (gè, here serving phonetically for lù). While 各 originally meant 'each' or 'arrive', its sound value approximates lù in Old Chinese. There’s no oracle-bone inscription of 赂—its earliest attestation is in Warring States bronze inscriptions and bamboo manuscripts, confirming its origin in bureaucratic record-keeping, not ritual or myth.
As an archaeologist sifting through bamboo slips from the Warring States period, I found 赂 etched in ink on legal statutes—always paired with verbs like 'give' or 'accept', never in isolation. Its presence signals institutional concern: early Chinese states recognized bribery as a corrosive force requiring explicit prohibition. The character appears in the *Book of Rites* and Qin legal texts, revealing that by 300 BCE, corruption was already codified as a punishable offense—not merely moral failing, but administrative sabotage.
The radical 贝 (bèi), meaning 'cowrie shell', anchors its meaning in ancient economics: cowries were China’s earliest currency. Thus, 赂 isn’t abstract—it’s transactional: 'money + to give'. The right side, 各 (gè), originally meant 'arrive' or 'to come to a place', suggesting the bribe ‘arrives’ at the recipient’s hands. This isn’t metaphor—it’s forensic linguistics: the character maps a real-world act: wealth transferred illicitly to influence power.
Excavations at Shuihudi (1975) unearthed Qin dynasty legal documents where 赂 appears in precise penalty clauses: 'For every one unit of money given as 赂, the giver loses three months of official rank.' No euphemisms—no 'gifts' or 'favors'. Just 赂: unambiguous, criminal, quantifiable. Its ten-stroke form stabilized by the Han dynasty, unchanged for over two millennia—a testament to how deeply this concept was embedded in China’s bureaucratic DNA long before modern anti-corruption campaigns.
Example Sentences
Common Compounds
Similar Characters — Don't Mix These Up
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