qī
seven
Original meaning:
cut
Depicts two lines crossing. Based on the original meaning "cut", now written as 切. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 七
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
---|---|---|
7 | ||
July | ||
at sixes and sevens | ||
Qixing district of Guilin city 桂林市[Guìlínshì], Guangxi | ||
girls' festival |
Component uses
Meaning component in 1 character (0 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[tsʰ]i[t] | tshit | qī | seven |
Statistics
HSK level 1
Appears in 34.9031% of movies
1085th most common character in movies
530th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 2 |
Unicode | U+4E03 |
Shuowen | “七,陽之正也。从一,微陰从中衺出也。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.951-952
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