In classical Chinese philology, shengxun or yinxun is a practice found in Chinese dictionaries where characters are explained by use of a homophone or near-homophone. The practice is ancient, and is present in texts predating the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC). The ancient Shiming dictionary is notable for using shengxun for most of its definitions, and the highly influential Shuowen Jiezi compiled by Xu Shen also employs the technique. For example, Xu's explanation of the word is:
The words for 'ghost' and 'return' are near-homophones both in Xu's reading and in modern Standard Chinese. A similar explanation of the word can be found in the earlier Erya . Shengxun can be highly fanciful, and often results in folk etymology. Put another way, the practice points to a notion of, or what Bernhard Karlgren called "word families".