Chinese Character Wiki
之

zhī

[attributive particle]

Original meaning: 

go forwards

Pictograph of a foot (止) going out of an area. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
止 sound,iconic component

止  Sound Iconic component

zhǐ

  

(foot), stop

Depicts a foot.

一 iconic component

一  Iconic component

yī

  

one

Used here to depict an area.

Evolution

之 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
之 Bronze script Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
之 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
之 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
之 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

之  

zhī

marks preceding phrase as modifier of following phrase; it, him her, them; go to; (possessive particle, literary equivalent of 的[de]); him; her; it

Most common words with 之
Freq.
Word
Meaning

之

him

之后

afterwards

之前

before

之间

between

之一

one of (sth)

Component uses

Sound component in 2 characters (1 verified)

寺 芝

Iconic component in 1 character (0 verified)

乏

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*tə

tsyi

zhī

go to

*tə

tsyi

zhī

(3p object pronoun; attributive particle)


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 98.7346% of movies

130th most common character in movies

44th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

3

Unicode

U+4E4B

Shuowen

“之，出也。象艸過屮，枝莖益大有所之。一者，地也。”


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