增持
zēng​chí

increase holdings

增 zēng increase

Phonosemantic compound. 土 represents the meaning and 曾 represents the sound.

Components

土
土 Meaning component
tǔ earth
曾
曾 Sound component
céng already

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 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 Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagarttsongs-tˤəŋ increase

說文解字

《說文》：“增，益也。从土，曾聲。”

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)

持 chí sustain

Phonosemantic compound. 扌 represents the meaning and 寺 represents the sound.

Components

扌
扌 Meaning component
shou, shǒu hand

扌 is a component form of 手.

寺
寺 Sound component
sì, shì temple

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartdri[d]rə grasp, hold

說文解字

《說文》：“持，握也。从手，寺聲。”

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)