《左傳》中屢見「諫」字，其義為「証」，「正言」也。其形式為居下位者向上位者進言，其內容「正言」，其所言意顯，其態度剛直，其所重公利。「諫」之深者為「強諫」、為「諗」。〈言部〉中若干字義與「諫」有部分交集，但或非正言，或嫌順悅，與「諫」義相去甚遠。《左傳》相關事例用「諫」字而非它，自當有意，或與書法有關也。

In the book of Tsou-chuan, we frequently encounter the character “chien”, which means to persuade appropriately. Through persuasion,lower officials used clear intentions and sincere attitude to argue matters of public interest to his superiors. In the dictionary, there are some characters that are closely defined to chien, but these carry different connotations. In the persuasive situations in Tsou-chuan, the character chien was always used. This is related to the author's writing style.