jí​kè

immediately

promptly

Original meaning: eat

Depicts a kneeling person () eating from a container of food (). Based on the original meaning "eat". The meaning later shifted to "come near", "approach", and "quickly".

Components

Iconic component
jí, bī, xiāng one grain

Depicts a container of food.

Iconic component
jié person kneeling

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Qin 221-206 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 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 Qin 221-206 BC
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
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (1 of 4 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagarttsik[ts]ik go to
tsik[ts]ik thereupon

說文解字

《說文》:“卽,即食也。从皀,卪聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica

carve

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Sound component
hài, jiē 12th terrestrial branch
Change in sound
Meaning component
dāo knife

is a component form of .

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartkhok[kʰ]ˤək cut, engrave

說文解字

《說文》:“刻,鏤也。从刀,亥聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica