gù​lì

former subordinate

incident, happening, cause

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Sound component
old
Meaning component
tap

is a component form of .

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Spring and Autumn ~700 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 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 Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartkuHkˤa(ʔ)-s fact; reason
kuHkˤaʔ-s old (not new)

說文解字

《說文》:“故,使為之也。从攴,古聲。”

Sources

Character origin
李学勤《字源》p.250
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica

government official

The characters (history), (government official), 使 (cause; use; instruct), and (matter; work; affair) are all etymologically related and all derive from the same ancient character, depicting a hand () holding a container for writing utensils. and were originally written the same, but later an extra mark was added to distinguish them.

Components

characterless component

Mark added to distinguish from .

SoundIconic component
shǐ history

Depicts a hand holding a container for writing utensils.

Change in sound

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 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 (1)

Iconic (1)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartliH[r]əʔ-s officer

說文解字

《說文》:“吏,治人者也。从一,从史,史亦聲。”

Sources

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