誓
shì HSK7

oath, vow

Phonosemantic compound. 言 represents the meaning and 折 represents the sound.

Components

言
言 Meaning component
yán speech
折
折 Sound component
zhé, zhē, shé break off
Change in sound

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartdzyejH[d][a]t-s swear

說文解字

《說文》：“誓，約束也。从言，折聲。”

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)