母系 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

mǔxì

maternal

mǔ mother

Pictograph of a woman kneeling, with two dots representing the two nipples that mothers use to feed their young.

Character Evolution

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Warring States 475-221 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Mid Warring States ~300 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

Clerical form — Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Sound (1 of 5 verified)

姆拇坶呣鉧

Iconic (2)

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	muwX	məʔ (? or *mˤoʔ)	mother

說文解字

《說文》：“母，牧也。从女，象褱子形。一曰象乳子也。”

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)

xì, xi, jì system

Pictograph of a hand (又) holding a group of threads (糸) that are connected together (系).

Components

又 Iconic component

yòu hand

Depicts a hand.

Change in form

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 又 than it was in ancient scripts.

糸 Iconic component

mì, sī silk

Depicts a group of threads.

Character Evolution

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 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

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Meaning (1 of 3 verified)

Iconic (2)

Deleted (1)

Sound (1)

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	hejH	[m]-kˤek-s	bind (v.)

說文解字

《說文》：“系，繫也。从糸，丿聲。，系或从、處。，籀文系从爪、絲。”

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)