寺
sì HSK6

temple

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approved by Prismcool · Dec 17, 2023, 07:20 AM · Reviewed by Prismcool on Dec 17, 2023, 07:20 AM

Replaced wrong sound component

Changed fields: components, customSources

Original meaning: to hold

Phonosemantic compound. 又 represents the meaning and 之 represents the sound. 又 was later reanalyzed as 寸, which also depicts a hand. Based on the original meaning "to hold", now written as 持. The current meaning "temple" is a phonetic loan.

Components

寸
寸 Meaning component

Depicts a hand.

Change in meaning
寸 hints at the original meaning of 寺, "to hold", which is no longer the most common meaning of 寺 in modern Mandarin.
之
之 Sound component
Change in sound
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 之 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC
Seal form
Seal Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
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

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartziHs-[d]əʔ-s hall

說文解字

《說文》:“寺,廷也,有法度者也。从寸,之聲。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.234漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica