激励
jī​lì HSK7

encourage

激 jī, ji excite, provoke

Phonosemantic compound. 氵 represents the meaning and 敫 represents the sound.

Components

氵
氵 Meaning component
shui, shuǐ water

氵 is a component form of 水.

敫
敫 Sound component
jiǎo, qiāo, jiào shining light

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartkek[k]ˤewk dam up (water)

說文解字

《說文》：“激，水礙衺疾波也。从水，敫聲。一曰半遮也。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

励 lì strive Simplified

Phonosemantic compound. 力 represents the meaning and 厉 represents the sound. Simplified form of 勵.

Components

厉
厉 Sound component
lì whetstone
力
力 SoundMeaning component
lì, li power

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode

勵 lì strive Traditional

Phonosemantic compound. 力 represents the meaning and 厲 represents the sound.

Components

厲
厲 Sound component
lì whetstone
力
力 SoundMeaning component
lì, li power

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangm·rads

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang