亦
yì HSK7

also

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approved by inralback19 · Nov 29, 2025, 03:16 PM · Reviewed by Prismcool on Nov 29, 2025, 11:42 PM

original meaning

Changed fields: originalMeaning

Original meaning: armpit

Pictograph of a person, with two dots at the armpits. Based on the original meaning "armpit", now written as 腋. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

大
大 Iconic component
dà, dài big

Depicts a person.

◎
◎ Iconic component
characterless component

Indicates the location of the armpits.


Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Jin 266-316 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartyek[ɢ](r)Ak armpit
yekɢ(r)Ak also

說文解字

《說文》：“亦，人之臂亦也。从大，象兩亦之形。”

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)