lái
come
Original meaning:
wheat
Pictograph of a stalk of wheat. The current meaning "come" is a phonetic loan. The original meaning "wheat" is now written as 麥.
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 來
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
---|---|---|
to come | ||
also pr. [qǐlai] | ||
to come out | ||
to return | ||
to come over |
Component uses
Simplified component in 1 character (1 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*mə.rˤək (> *mə.rˤə) | loj | lái | a kind of wheat |
*mə.rˤək (> *rˤə) | loj | lái | come |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
Appears in 99.9840% of movies
16th most common character in movies
15th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 8 |
Simplified | |
Unicode | U+4F86 |
Shuowen | “來,周所受瑞麥來麰,一來二縫。象芒朿之形。天所來也,故為行來之來。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.465
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