虎子

Chinese

		tiger	child; son; (noun suff.) child; son; (noun suff.); small thing; midnight; 11 p.m.-1 a.m.; seed; egg; 1st earthly branch
simp. and trad. (虎子)		虎	子

Pronunciation

Mandarin
(Pinyin): hǔzǐ

(Zhuyin): ㄏㄨˇ ㄗˇ
Cantonese (Jyutping): fu² zi²

Mandarin
- (Standard Chinese)⁺
  - Pinyin: hǔzǐ [Phonetic: húzǐ]
  - Zhuyin: ㄏㄨˇ ㄗˇ
  - Gwoyeu Romatzyh: huutzyy
  - IPA ^(key): /xu²¹⁴⁻³⁵ t͡sz̩²¹⁴⁻²¹⁽⁴⁾/
Cantonese
- (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou)⁺
  - Jyutping: fu² zi²
  - Yale: fú jí
  - Cantonese Pinyin: fu² dzi²
  - Guangdong Romanization: fu² ji²
  - IPA ^(key): /fuː³⁵ t͡siː³⁵/

Noun

虎子

(literary, literally) tiger's cub

不入虎穴，焉得虎子？ [MSC, trad. and simp.]
Bù rù hǔxué, yān dé hǔzǐ? [Pinyin]
If you don't enter the tiger's den, how will you get the tiger's cub?
(archaic) nightstool; closestool; commode; toilet; chamber pot (with shape similar to tiger)

Usage notes

During the Han Dynasty, the emperor's commode was called 虎子. However, the grandfather of Emperor Gaozu of Tang was called 李虎 (Lǐ Hǔ). Because it was forbidden for common items to contain the given names of members of the imperial family (see Naming taboo), 虎子 was changed to 馬子／马子 (mǎzi), which morphed later into 馬桶／马桶 (mǎtǒng).

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