xì
bind
Depicts typing a rope (系) around a person's (亻) neck. 系 also represents the sound.
Components
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 係
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
---|---|---|
relation | ||
system | ||
connection | ||
to connect | ||
it doesn't matter |
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*kˤek-s | kejH | xì | tie (v.) |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
Appears in 90.9018% of movies
268th most common character in movies
216th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 9 |
Simplified | |
Unicode | U+4FC2 |
Shuowen | “係,絜束也。从人,从系,系亦聲。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.637-638
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