寺
sì HSK6

temple

← Back to history
approved by Peter Olson · Oct 9, 2020, 02:10 PM · Reviewed by Peter Olson on Oct 9, 2020, 02:10 PM

verify, add source

Changed fields: gloss, hint, originalMeaning, isVerified, components, customSources

Original meaning: to hold

Phonosemantic compound. 寸 represents the meaning and 止 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "to hold", now written as 持. The current meaning "temple" is a phonetic loan.

Components

寸
寸 Meaning component
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.
止
止 Sound component
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 止 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
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)