Liu Xi's life is no longer known in any detail: his nationality, birth and death years are all unrecorded, and the available public information is very limited. What can be confirmed today is only that he wrote the Shiming (Explanation of Names), a work that holds an important place in the study of language and the glossing of names and things in ancient China. The Shiming relies mainly on sound-based glossing, attempting to explain why things are named as they are through phonetic associations, and it glosses everyday objects, institutions, and words concerning heaven, earth, and human affairs one by one, in a format resembling an etymological dictionary. The book preserves a large body of vocabulary relating to objects, institutions, and customs from around the Han period, providing valuable material for later research on Old Chinese etymology, phonological change, and social life, and scholars through the ages have frequently cited and supplemented it. In common classifications, Liu Xi and the Shiming are placed under Eastern philosophy, which relates to its orientation toward clarifying names and realities and inquiring into the principles by which things are named. Because historical sources are scarce, his life cannot be examined in detail; readers should come to know Liu Xi chiefly through the Shiming itself, appreciating its methods of glossing and its investigation of names and things, as well as the book's influence on the history of ancient Chinese linguistics.
