唯
wéiwěi HSK5

only

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 隹 represents the sound.

Components

口
口 Meaning component
kǒu, kou mouth
隹
隹 Sound component
zhuī, cuī, wéi bird

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Spring and Autumn 771-476 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 Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Simplified (1)

虽

Sound (1)

雖

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartywijɢʷij (< *ɢʷuj?)only

說文解字

《說文》：“唯，諾也。从口，隹聲。”

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)