弌
yī

one

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approved by Marcus Ngai · Aug 20, 2026, 11:43 AM · Reviewed by Marcus Ngai on Aug 20, 2026, 11:43 AM

Could someone review the source more thoroughly and double check the etym. desc. for this? My reading comprehension is honestly terrible, especially for big blocks of text.

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

Thsi character combined 一 with 弋 or 戈 to prevent forgery in banking statements. Nowadays, 壹 is used instead.

Components

一
一 Iconic component
弋
弋 Distinguishing component

Used to prevent forgery.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 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 Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
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 Three Kingdoms (Wu) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangqliɡ

說文解字

《說文》：“一，惟初太始，道立於一，造分天地，化成萬物。弌，古文一。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.37
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)