despise, low-life, poverty
賤 centers on low social or moral worth: despising someone as low-life, or the poverty that marks a low station. The meanings all point to being looked down on.
賤 combines 貝 (shell, money) with 戔, which likely contributes the sound and carries a sense of smallness or injury. The idea is that poverty or low status is associated with meager wealth.
Shells 貝 were old currency, and the right side 戔 suggests something small or damaged. Picture a person with only a few broken shells—so poor and lowly that others despise them.
For セン, imagine a scene where a low-life beggar holds out a single cent, and people despise him for it: cent -> セン.
lowly person; lowliness
high and low (social standing)
five lowly castes of the ritsuryō system
five lowly castes of the ritsuryō system
low rank; humble station; obscurity
rich and poor, high and low; people of all ranks
high and low; (people of) all ranks and classes
morganatic marriage (marriage of a noble and a commoner that disallows the passage of title, possessions, etc.)
high and low, and rich and poor
woman of lowly birth
low-ranking official
lowly woman
lowly people (esp. as a caste); humble people
depreciatory name
lesser cuckoo (Cuculus poliocephalus)