Original meaning: to bury a person
Depicts using a digging tool (歹) to bury a person (人). Based on the original meaning "to bury a person". The meaning of this character has shifted over time and now means "die".
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | sijX | sijʔ | die (v.) |
說文解字
《說文》：“死，澌也，人所離也。从歺，从人。，古文死如此。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 张昂《说“死”“葬”》廣韻形聲考
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)
Simplified
Traditional
Depicts a mouth (口) interrogating a captured prisoner of war (卂). 卂 also represents the sound. The 口 (mouth) component was later reanalyzed as 言 (speech).
Components
Character Evolution
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | sinH | [s]i[n]-s | ask |
說文解字
《說文》：“訊，問也。从言，卂聲。，古文訊从卥。”
Sources
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)