先秦文獻中有若干由「獻」字構成的詞語，如「獻民」、「獻臣」、「黎獻」等。這些詞語中的「獻」字，舊注多訓為賢。清代以來，已有許多學者注意到「獻」無賢義，並試圖解決此一訓詁問題，然至今尚無定論。本文認為，這些「獻」字實當為「櫱」之通假，其原始意義為《說文》所釋之「伐木餘」。隨著語言的演變，「櫱」引申出一組與之相關的意涵。本文首先說明「櫱」字之字形、字義演變，以及在不同方言中的表達方式，接著依次論述「獻民」、「義民」、「人鬲」這三個先秦習見但至今仍缺乏正確理解的詞彙。根據本文的研究，這些詞彙均源於「櫱」之通假，因此，在訓解這些詞彙時應當參酌「櫱」之字義，方能恰當理解這些詞彙的語意及其所在的語境。最後，本文針對近年出土的〈遂公盨〉「益櫱懿德」與〈孔子詩論〉「以為其櫱」二語，說明其用語背後所表達的思想意義

The character xian (獻) was included in several pre-Qin Chinese phrases, where xian (獻) was usually interpreted as xian (賢) ‘able and virtuous.’ Qing scholars noticed that xian (獻) in fact did not bear the meaning of xian (賢) and tried to define this character but still failed to reach a consensus. In fact, xian (獻) should be a word borrowed from nie (櫱) , whose original meaning was “remains of the cut trees,” and a series of related meanings originated from it when the language developed. This paper first demonstrates the development of the forms and meanings of nie (櫱) , along with its expressions in different dialects, and then discusses the three phrases xian-min (獻民), yi-min (義民) and ren-li (人鬲), which were frequently used in Pre-Qin but cannot be surely understood so far. This paper points out that the three phrases were all derived from nie (櫱) so the meanings of nie (櫱) have to be considered for a correct understanding of the meanings and contexts of these phrases. Finally, this paper illustrates the significance of the two phrases yi-nie-yide (益櫱懿德) and yi-wei-qi-nie (以為其櫱) in the recently unearthed Xu Pot of Duke Sui (遂公盨) and Confucius’s Talks of the Classic of Poetry (孔子詩論)