The address chart: seniority comes first
Inside a sect, rank among disciples follows the order of entry, not age. A woman who joined the master a year later is a junior, even if she is older. Gender does not change that order.
| You say | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Shifu 师父 | Your own teacher, literally teacher-father. Warm and family-like. |
| Shizun 师尊 | Honored Master. A stronger, more formal respect, common in xianxia (Chinese fantasy about immortal cultivation). |
| Shixiong 师兄 | Senior male disciple of the same master. |
| Shidi 师弟 / Shimei 师妹 | Junior brother / junior sister. |
| Shizu 师祖 | Grandmaster: the master of your master. |
The senior sister form, shijie 师姐, is a standard term, but it is not one of the rows here. The list shows two Martial Uncle rows because shishu 师叔 is a younger brother of your master and shibo 师伯 is an older one.
Real tradition or genre convention?
Each row carries a label. Real tradition means the term belongs to real martial or religious life, for example Hall Master 堂主, Guardian 护法 or Deacon 执事. Genre convention means it mostly lives in fiction, for example Holy Maiden 圣女, Supreme Elder 太上长老 and the split between inner and outer sect disciples. Treat the label as a guide and read how we check in editorial standards.
Daoist names often follow one pattern: an image plus an ending. Changchun Zi 长春子 means Master of Eternal Spring, and Taiyi Zhenren 太乙真人 means Perfected Master of the Great Primordial One. Women's titles use Primordial Lady 元君, Fairy 仙子 or Daoist Nun 仙姑. Buddhist dharma names are short, such as Huineng 慧能, wise ability.
Three realm ladders
The ladders are genre conventions, and stories change the names or the order. The standard xianxia ladder runs from Qi Condensation through Foundation Establishment, Golden Core and Nascent Soul to Deity Transformation. A classical Daoist version has four steps of refining, from essence to qi, qi to spirit, spirit to void and void to Dao. Body cultivation tempers skin, flesh, tendons, bones and organs, then ends with Marrow Cleansing. Character glosses come from the Unicode Unihan database.