犀 — Edit Snapshot — Chinese Character Wiki

xī

rhinoceros

approved by Peter Olson · Sep 27, 2021, 07:50 PM · Reviewed by Peter Olson on Sep 27, 2021, 07:50 PM

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Changed fields: hint, isVerified, components, customSources, strokeDataSimp, fragmentsSimp, historicalImages

Phonosemantic compound. 尾 represents the sound and 牛 represents the meaning.

Components

尾 Sound component

Change in sound

犀 and 尾 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in older Chinese.

Change in form

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 尾 than it was in ancient scripts.

牛 Meaning component

Regular Modern

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	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	sej	s.lˤəj	rhinoceros

《說文》：“犀，南徼外牛，一角在鼻，一角在頂，似豕。从牛，聲。”