bān​dǐ

core team

bān group

Original meaning: divide

Depicts a knife () cutting a gem into two halves (), based on the original meaning "to divide". The meaning later shifted to "division", "group", and "team".

Components

Iconic component
jué two pieces of jade joined together
Iconic component
dāo knife

is a component form of .


Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Xin 9-23 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartpaenpˤ<r>an divide, distribute

說文解字

《說文》:“班,分瑞玉。从玨,从刀。”

Sources

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

bottom

Phonosemantic compound. 广 represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

广
广 Meaning component
guǎng roof
SoundMeaning component
dī, dǐ, zhī bottom

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarttejXtˤijʔ bottom; stop, obstruct

說文解字

《說文》:“底,山居也。一曰下也。从广,氐聲。”

Sources

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