履
lǚ HSK7

to tread on, shoes

Depicts a person (頁) using their foot (夂) to tread. 眉 was later added to embellish the character and to represent the sound while a component that depicts a shoe was also later added to 夂 (foot) to emphasize another meaning "shoes". The component that depicts a shoe was later reanalyzed as meaning component 彳 (walk).

Components

眉
眉 SoundIconicRemnant component
méi eyebrows

Depicts an eyebrow.

Change in sound
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 眉 than it was in ancient scripts.
彳
彳 Meaning component
chì, fú walk

彳 is a component form of 行. Originally depicted a shoe.

頁
頁 Iconic component
yè (head), page

Depicts a head on top of a person.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 頁 than it was in ancient scripts.
夂
夂 Iconic component
zhǐ, zhōng go

夂 is a component form of 止. Depicts a foot.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 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
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Meaning (1)

屐

Remnant (1)

屐

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartlijX[r]ijʔ tread on; sandal

說文解字

《說文》：“履，足所依也。从尸，从彳，从攵，舟象履形。一曰尸聲。，古文履从頁，从足。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫zi.tools季旭昇《說文新證》p.681-682Wiktionary
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)