Original meaning: leisure; carefree
Depicts a person with their hair loose. Based on the original meaning "leisure; carefree", now written as 佚. The meaning later shifted to "lose" and "fail".
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | syit | l̥i[t] | lose |
說文解字
《說文》：“失，縱也。从手，乙聲。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 何景成《甲骨文字詁林補編》p.26黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》p.3349
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)
Depicts harvesting grain (禾) with a blade (刂). Harvest was the main source of profit in agricultural societies.
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | lijH | C.ri[t]-s | sharp; profit |
說文解字
《說文》：“利，銛也。从刀；和然後利，从和省。《易》曰：‘利者，義之和也。’”
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)