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).