拮
jié

laboring hard

Phonosemantic compound. 扌 represents the meaning and 吉 represents the sound.

Components

扌
扌 Meaning component
shou, shǒu hand

扌 is a component form of 手.

吉
吉 Sound component
jí lucky

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartketkˤi[t]grasp (v.)
Zhengzhangkiːd
klid

說文解字

手口共有所作也。从手吉聲。《詩》曰：“予手拮据。”

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-SagartZhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)