昃
zè

afternoon

Depicts the sun (日) slanting towards the west casting a tilted shadow of a person. The component depicting the tilted shadow was later replaced by the phonetic component 仄.

Components

日
日 Iconic component
rì sun
仄
仄 SoundMeaning component
zè slanting

Originally depicted a tilted shadow of a person. Later rewritten into phonetic component 仄.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 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
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagarttsrik[ts]rək sun slanting to west

說文解字

《說文》：“，日在西方時，側也。从日，仄聲。《易》曰：‘日之離。’”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫季旭昇《說文新證》p.534
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)