魑
chī

a mountain demon resembling a tiger

Phonosemantic compound. 鬼 represents the meaning and 离 represents the sound.

Components

鬼
鬼 Meaning component
guǐ ghost
离
离 SoundMeaning component
lí leave

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagarttrhjer̥aj demon

說文解字

《說文新附》:“魑,鬼屬。从鬼,从离。离亦聲。”

Sources

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