賊
zéi HSK7

thief

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approved by Hsmq · Feb 13, 2026, 05:15 PM · Reviewed by Prismcool on Feb 13, 2026, 06:14 PM

not remnant

Changed fields: components

Original meaning: to destroy

Phonosemantic compound. 戈 represents the meaning and 則 represents the sound.

Components

則
則 Sound component
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 則 than it was in ancient scripts.
戈
戈 Meaning component

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartdzokk.dzˤək injure; murderer, bandit

說文解字

《說文》：“，敗也。从戈，則聲。”

Sources

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