jí, qì
urgently
Originally a pictograph of a person with lines at the top and bottom, depicting the original meaning "extremity". Later the 口 (mouth) and 又 (hand) components were added to depict shouting in an urgent situation, such as being chased.
Components
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
ModernHistorical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*k(r)ək | kik | jí | urgently |
*kʰ(r)ək-s | khiH | qì | often |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
3619th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 8 |
Unicode | U+4E9F |
Shuowen | “亟,敏疾也。从人,从口,从又,从二。二,天地也。” |
Sources
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