Question on typing Chinese <specific character>

Factual Questions
1

For reasons which are too weird and boring to mention, I am trying to type in the text of a Chinese folktale. I don’t speak Chinese, but I can sort of find my way around a dictionary, and my font (AR PL New Sung [traditional character set]) is in the same order as the dictionaries’ radical index, so it’s pretty straightforward. There is one character I cannot find, though, and I’m wondering if that is because it is Classical Chinese, old-fashioned, no longer used, or what.

The character has three parts: 言 on the bottom left, 寸 on the bottom right, and 目 on top of both, only sideways. It appears in a footnote explaining a character.

Context: 論 : 定罪。城旦:一種刑X。 (the X is my mystery character). It is explaining something about how the character in context means that the title character was sentenced to work on building the city walls as a punishment.

Can anyone (a) explain what the mystery character is, and (b) let me know why I can’t find it in the dictionary or the font?

Thanks!

PS: “Because you’re an (GQ-appropriate synonym for idiot)” followed by an explanation would be great, though I’ve looked multiple times in multiple dictionaries.

2

The character you are looking for is fá, and the reason you can’t find it is because the way you are describing it is the way it is written in classical Chinese. It means “to punish.” 罚 seems to be how it is written in modern Chinese.

3

Thanks for the quick reply! I found it in Mathews’ dictionary as you have it only with 言 where your fá has 讠, which is (I gather) just the difference between traditional and simplified forms?

4

Yup, that’s one of the first things I learned when learning modern Chinese (after learning classical Chinese): 言 becomes 讠 for most modern characters.