Shaohsing

S1H4A1O1H4S1I1N1G2

A form of Shaoxing — A prefecture-level city in eastern Zhejiang, China, along the southern shore of Hangzhou Bay, the site of the former capitals of the Yue kingdom and Kuaiji Commandery.

Scrabble 16

Meanings

proper noun
  1. alternativeAlternative form of Shaoxing.

    Picture above shows the colorful costumes used in Shaohsing opera.

    1981 March 22, “Chinese opera delights audience at international arts festival”, in Free China Weekly, volume XXII, number 11, Taipei, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2
    4 more examples

    After a short stay at Kinhwa, Ch'iu Chin returned to Shaohsing, and there she first heard the bad news from Kiangsi—the execution of many of her personal friends, the arrest and imprisonment of others. All hope of co-operation was thus destroyed.

    1917, Lionel Giles, Ch'iu Chin: A Chinese Heroine, East & West, Ltd., page 11

    Of most interest, since they are unique and seem to be unknown anywhere else in the world, were the "foot-boats," as the few foreigners who have come to Shaohsing call them. The boatmen of this town, toward which we were headed, are famous, in so far as their fame has spread, for the way they row their long, slender, though by no means light, boats, tippy as canoes, with their legs.

    1925, Harry A. Franck, Roving Through Southern China, The Century Company, page 34

    Prior to the opening of the treaty ports, Ningpo was a Janus-faced port serving the coastal trade (and overseas as far as Nagasaki and ports of Southeast Asia) on the east; and the canal trade of Chekiang, oriented toward Shaohsing and Hangchow on the west. The coastal entry to Ningpo was guarded from the east by the hsien seat of Chen-hai, at the mouth of the Yung River. The city of Ningpo (itself the seat of Yin hsien) and the hsien city of Tz’u-ch’i, midway between Ningpo and Shaohsing, were the merchant centers of the era before 1842.

    1976, Susan Mann Jones, “Merchant Investment, Commercialization, and Social Change in the Ningpo Area”, in Paul A. Cohen, John E. Schrecker, editors, Reform in Nineteenth-Century China, Harvard University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 46

    The most popular liquor is Shaohsing, a rice wine with much more moderate alcohol content.

    2004, Phil Macdonald, National Geographic Traveler: Taiwan, National Geographic Society, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 28

Origin

Borrowed from Mandarin 紹興/绍兴 (Shàoxīng) Wade–Giles romanization: Shao⁴-hsing¹.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

Shaohsing. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Shaohsing

MLA

“Shaohsing.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Shaohsing. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Shaohsing,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Shaohsing.

Source: Shaohsing on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.