jiǔ
nine
Original meaning:
elbow
Depicts an elbow. Based on the original meaning "elbow", now written as 肘. 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 九
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
---|---|---|
9 | ||
September | ||
Ma Ying-jeou (1950-), Taiwanese Kuomintang politician, Mayor of Taipei 1998-2006, president of Republic of China 2008-2016 | ||
also Jiujiang county | ||
Kowloon district of Hong Kong |
Component uses
Simplified component in 1 character (1 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[k]uʔ | kjuwX | jiǔ | nine |
Statistics
HSK level 1
Appears in 24.0589% of movies
1329th most common character in movies
445th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 2 |
Unicode | U+4E5D |
Shuowen | “九,陽之變也。象其屈曲究盡之形。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.952-953
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