哲
zhé HSK6

wise

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 折 represents the sound.

Components

折
折 Sound component
zhé, zhē, shé break off
口
口 Meaning component
kǒu, kou mouth

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Wu) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagarttrjettr[e]t wise

說文解字

《說文》：“哲，知也。从口，折聲。悊，哲或从心。嚞，古文哲从三吉。”

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)