尺牍
chǐ​dú

letter

尺 chǐ traditional Chinese unit of length ~ 1 foot

Origin unclear. Possibly a pictograph of a side view of a person with a mark on their leg indicating the length of one foot.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Xin 9-23 AD
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
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (1 of 3 verified)

迟呎鈬

Simplified (1)

昼

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

咫

Unknown (0 of 1 verified)

庹

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarttsyhektʰAk foot (measure)

說文解字

《說文》：“尺，十寸也。人手卻十分動脈為寸口。十寸為尺。尺，所以指尺榘事也。从尸，从乙，乙所識也。周制寸、尺、咫、尋、常、仞諸度量，皆以人之體為法。”

Sources

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

牍 dú writing tablet Simplified

Phonosemantic compound. 片 represents the meaning and 卖 represents the sound. Simplified form of 牘.

Components

片
片 Meaning component
piàn, piān slice
卖
卖 Sound component
mài, mai sell

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode

牘 writing tablet Traditional

Phonosemantic compound. 片 represents the meaning and 賣 represents the sound.

Components

片
片 Meaning component
piàn, piān slice
賣
賣 Sound component
mài, mai sell

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartduwklˤoktablet
Zhengzhangl'oːɡ

說文解字

書版也。从片賣聲。

Sources

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