jī​chá

inspect

jī, qǐ examine

Components

Meaning component
grain stalk

grain

Unknown component
yóu especially
Sound component
zhǐ purpose

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Xin 9-23 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 Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartkejkˤijaccord with; cultivate (field); calculate
khejX[kʰ]ˤijʔbow the head to the ground
Zhengzhangkiː
kʰiːʔ
Unicodegei
kěi

說文解字

畱止也。从𥝌从尤,旨聲。凡稽之屬皆从稽。

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-SagartZhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica

chá investigate

Original meaning: hawthorn tree

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "hawthorn tree", now written as . The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

Meaning component
tree
Sound component
qiě moreover
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to than it was in ancient scripts.

Component uses

Sound (0 of 8 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangʔsraː
zraː
zraː

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang