失忆
shī​yì

amnesia

失 shī lose

Original meaning: leisure; carefree

Depicts a person with their hair loose. Based on the original meaning "leisure; carefree", now written as 佚. The meaning later shifted to "lose" and "fail".

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 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 Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (2 of 11 verified)

铁跌秩迭轶帙鉄瓞袟泆軼

Meaning (1 of 2 verified)

跌佚

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartsyitl̥i[t] lose

說文解字

《說文》：“失，縱也。从手，乙聲。”

Sources

Character origin
何景成《甲骨文字詁林補編》p.26黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》p.3349
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

忆 yì remember Simplified

Phonosemantic compound. 忄 represents the meaning and 乙 represents the sound. Simplified form of 憶.

Components

忄
忄 Meaning component
xin, xīn heart

忄 is a component form of 心.

乙
乙 Sound component
yǐ second

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode

憶 yì remember Traditional

Phonosemantic compound. 忄 represents the meaning and 意 represents the sound.

Components

忄
忄 Meaning component
xin, xīn heart

忄 is a component form of 心.

意
意 Sound component
yì, yi thought

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagart'ikʔ(r)ək remember

Sources

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