卑劣
bēi​liè

despicable

卑 bēi humble, inferior

Pictograph of a hand holding a tool used by servants.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (3 of 19 verified)

牌碑脾啤婢俾裨稗捭睥髀萆鹎蜱郫埤陴痺鵯

Meaning (0 of 6 verified)

婢颦鼙髀庳顰

Iconic (0 of 1 verified)

裨

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartpjiepe low, humble
pjiepe 鮮卑 *s[a]r.pe Xiānbēi

說文解字

《說文》：“卑，賤也，執事也。从、甲。”

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)

劣 liè bad

Phonosemantic compound. 少 represents the meaning and 力 represents the sound.

Components

少
少 Meaning component
shǎo, shao, shào few
力
力 Sound component
lì, li power

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld Chinese
Zhengzhangrod
Unicodeliuɛt

說文解字

弱也。从力少聲。

Sources

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