jinshi

1. “advanced” or “entered graduate”, a scholar who had successfully passed the highest level of the Chinese imperial examinations (殿試), usually held triennially at the imperial court.

   Fan was a native of En-shih, Hupeh. Handsome and intelligent, he went to Peking and made a name for himself quickly after passing the chin-shih examination in 1877.

   [1965 December, Ramon L. Y. Woon, Irving Y. Lo, “Poets and Poetry of China's Last Empire”, in Literature East and West, volume IX, number 4, New Paltz, N. Y.: State University College, →OCLC, page 334

   2 more examples

   Again there is the story of the experience that befell Huang Yüeh, who obtained his chin-shih during the Ch’ien-lung era (1736-96) and rose to become director of the Board of Rites (li-pu shang-shu), equivalent to a minister of education. He went into the compound to take the examination and was sitting in his cell when a girl came flitting down his lane. Her dress was extremely shabby and her hair disheveled, but her face and figure were extraordinarily beautiful.

   [1976, Ichisada Miyazaki, “The Provincial Examination and Reexamination”, in Conrad Schirokauer, transl., China's Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, Weatherhill, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 47

   T'ien was a Shun-chih period chin-shih who received highest rating for his performance as magistrate of T'ai-k'ang county in Honan, and was subsequently appointed to a series of capital posts, including Vice Censor-in-chief, and Jr. Vice Minister of Works.

   [1985, Thomas Carl Bartlett, Ku Yen-wu's Response to "the Demise of Human Society", Princeton University, →OCLC, page 83

alternative Chin-shih

1. A county-level city of Changde, Hunan, China.

   1 more example

   The centuries-old coins were first unearthed on a farm in the southern Hunan province in the 1960s, where they had been kept inside a small glazed pot. They arrived at Jinshi City's museum in the 1980s, and archaeologists have been puzzling over their markings ever since, the Xinhua news agency reports. Now the museum says it'll hand out 10,000 yuan ($1,500; £1,100) to anyone who can help to shed light on the meaning of the coins' etchings.

   2016 February 17, “China museum offers reward to decode historic coins”, in BBC News, archived from the original on 19 Mar 2016, News from Elsewhere