zhǐ HSK7

purpose

Original meaning: fine-tasting

Depicts a spoon () going into the mouth (), conveying the original meaning "fine-tasting". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

Iconic component
bǐ, pìn spoon, (person)
Iconic component
kǒu, kou mouth

Depicts food inside the mouth.


Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Spring and Autumn 771-476 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Spring and Autumn ~700 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 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 Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (2 of 8 verified)

Meaning (0 of 2 verified)

Iconic (1)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarttsyijXkijʔ fine-tasting

說文解字

《說文》:“旨,美也。从甘,匕聲。,古文旨。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫季旭昇《說文新證》p.396-397
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica