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Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC 
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC 
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC 
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC 
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC 
Bronze Spring and Autumn 771-476 BC 
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC 
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC 
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC 
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC 
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD 
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD 
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC 
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD 
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD 
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD 
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD Regular Modern
Added etymology
Changed fields: hint, originalMeaning, isVerified, components, customSources, strokeDataSimp, fragmentsSimp, historicalImages
Original meaning: to punish
Originally written as 𱖔, which depicts a knife with tooth-shaped decorations on the back. The components 彳 (walk) and 攵 (tap) were added later to indicate movement and action. Based on the original meaning "to punish". The meaning later shifted to "invade", "to summon" and "to recruit" while its other meaning used as a musical note is a phonetic loan.
Components
Character Evolution
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | tring | trəŋ | examine |
說文解字
《說文》：“徵，召也。从微省，壬為徵，行於微而文達者即徵之。，古文徵。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 漢語多功能字庫The Outlier Linguistics Dictionary of Chinese Characters
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)