信贷 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

xìn trust

Conveys trusting (信) what a person (人) says (言). 人 is also a sound component.

Components

rén person

亻 is a component form of 人.

Change in sound

信 and 亻 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
信 *s-ni[ŋ]-s
亻 *ni[ŋ]

言 Meaning component

yán speech

Character Evolution

Bronze form — Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	sinH	s-ni[ŋ]-s	truthful

說文解字

《說文》：“信，誠也。从人，从言，會意。，古文从言省。訃，古文信。”

Sources

Character origin: 漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

dài, tè lend Simplified

Phonosemantic compound. 贝 represents the meaning and 代 represents the sound. Simplified form of 貸.

Components

贝 Meaning component

bèi sea shell

代 Sound component

dài replace

Sources

Readings & variants: Unicode

lend Traditional

Phonosemantic compound. 貝 represents the meaning and 代 represents the sound.

Components

貝 Meaning component

bèi sea shell

代 Sound component

dài replace

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

▼ More ▲ Less

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	thojH	l̥ˤək-s	borrow; lend
Zhengzhang		l̥ʰɯːɡs

說文解字

施也。从貝代聲。

Sources

Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

信 xìn trust

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

贷 dài, tè lend Simplified

Components

Sources

貸 lend Traditional

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

xìn trust

dài, tè lend Simplified

lend Traditional