璽
xǐ

imperial signet

Phonosemantic compound. 玉 represents the meaning and 爾 represents the sound.

Components

玉
玉 Meaning component
yù jade
爾
爾 Sound component
ěr you
Change in sound

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 Three Kingdoms (Wu) 222-280 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 Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartsjeXs.[n]e[r]ʔ seal (n.)

說文解字

《說文》：“壐，王者印也，所以主土。从土，爾聲。璽，籀文从玉。”

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)

玺 xǐ imperial signet Simplified

Phonosemantic compound. 玉 represents the meaning and 尔 represents the sound. Simplified form of 璽.

Components

玉
玉 Meaning component
yù jade
尔
尔 Sound component
ěr you
Change in sound

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode