Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • Chinese philosopher who promoted a system of social and political ethics emphasizing order, moderation, and reciprocity between superiors and subordinates. The Analects contains a collection of his sayings and dialogues compiled by disciples after his death.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun a Chinese philosopher (circa 551-478 BC), the founder of Confucianism.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun Western name of Kong Qiu (孔丘), an influential Chinese philosopher who lived 551 BCE – 479 BCE.
  • proper noun A male given name.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun Chinese philosopher whose ideas and sayings were collected after his death and became the basis of a philosophical doctrine known a Confucianism (circa 551-478 BC)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin Confucius, from the pinyin romanisation of Sinitic 孔夫子 (Kǒng Fūzǐ) "Master Kong".

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