On the character 罪

The human impulse to break the law has been around since law began, and in ancient China, the price paid was brutal. The lethal injection of today is lenient compared to the age when the character 罪 (zuì) was first scripted. When it was carved as bronze script during the Warring States Period (475-221 BCE), the character consisted of a nose-shaped radical on the top and a knife-shaped radical on the bottom, 辠, meaning punishment by "cutting one's nose off ".

As one might imagine, with such a vicious punishment, anecdotes abound. During the Warring States Period, in the royal court of the Chu State, Zhen Xiu was the most loved concubine of the king, but her striking beauty was matched by her sadistic temperament. When the king took a new concubine from the State of Wei, Zhen became jealous. Feigning friendship, Zhen offered the new concubine advice on how to keep the king interested. "His majesty doesn't like your nose. You should cover it in his presence," she said. The gullible new concubine then covered her nose with her sleeves every time she was visited by the king. After a while, the king, baffled by such a gesture, consulted Zhen: "Why does the beauty from the State of Wei cover her nose whenever she's with me?" Zhen replied: "I'm afraid she is disgusted by your majesty's body odor." Hearing this, the king was furious and ordered the beauty's nose cut off, putting Zhen once again in her lord's good graces.

In most cases, the punishment of cutting off a criminal's nose—or just branding their face—was not just to inflict pain; rather, it was to mark the person as a criminal, permanently. As such, the name of this particular punishment began to represent the concept of crime in general. Because the original character took on the meaning of crime, the original punishment was represented by a newly created character, 劓 (yì).

Later, when the Emperor Qinshihuang founded the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE), he called himself "the Initial Emperor" (始皇帝 shǐhuángdì). It was said that he found "辠" resembles "皇" (emperor) in shape and ordered it to be abandoned. As a result, a new character, 罪, was created to represent crime. Consisting of 网 (wǎng, web) on top and a phonetic radical, 非 (fēi), on the bottom; the character lost its original pronunciation, but it maintains its original form today. This new form indicates that, when one commits a crime, they will be quickly captured in a web.