丕
pī

great

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approved by Marcus Ngai · Nov 5, 2026, 02:00 AM · Reviewed by Marcus Ngai on Nov 5, 2026, 02:00 AM

Added "Based on old pronunciation that is no longer obvious in modern Mandarin".

Changed fields: components

Originally written the same as 不, depicting the sepals of a flower. 一 was later added to 丕 to distinguish it from 不. The meaning "great" is a phonetic loan.

Components

不
不 Sound component
Change in sound
一
一 Distinguishing component

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 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-Sagartphijpʰrə great

說文解字

《說文》：“丕，大也。从一，不聲。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.41-42
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)