羲
Xī

ancient emperor

← Back to history
approved by cochleoid · Sep 18, 2022, 03:12 AM · Reviewed by cochleoid on Sep 18, 2022, 03:12 AM

Although the whole character is originally iconic, I used the Shuowen's decomposition for the sake of the apparent phonetic component. The other component is just a corruption that is now written like 兮 but has nothing to do with it otherwise. I'm not sure how to mark that "form only" sort of relation.

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

Original meaning: sacrificial slaughter

Mainly used in oracle bone place names, and bronze inscription personal names. Depiction of animal sacrifice. The original form of 犧 (sacrifice).

Components

義
義 SoundIconic component

Originally just 我 (saw-toothed dagger axe) in oracle bone script, later phoneticized in bronze script by adding a 羊 (sheep).

兮
兮 MeaningIconic component

Originally this may have depicted a decapitated 豕(pig), now signifies the "breath", "gas", or "vapor" meanings.


Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Jin 266-316 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartxjeŋ̊(r)aj (proper name)

說文解字

《說文》：“羲，气也。从兮，義聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫李学勤 《字源》 p.422
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)