癡 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

chī

silly

Phonosemantic compound. 疒 represents the meaning and 疑 represents the sound.

Components

疒 Meaning component

nè sick

疑 Sound component

yí doubt

Change in sound

癡 and 疑 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Middle Chinese.
癡 tjiə
疑 ngi

Regular Modern

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	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese
Zhengzhang		ŋ̊ʰl'ɯ
Unicode	tjiə

《說文》：“癡，不慧也。从疒，疑聲。”

Phonosemantic compound. 疒 represents the meaning and 知 represents the sound. Simplified form of 癡.

疒 Meaning component

nè sick

zhī know

	Old Chinese
Zhengzhang	l̥ʰɯ