liù
six
Origin unclear. Various explainations include (1) possibly derives from 入 (enter), with two strokes on the bottom to distinguish it from 入 (enter) or (2) a pictograph of a hut, which is thought to be the original form of 廬. Either way, the current meaning is a phoentic 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
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*k.ruk | ljuwk | liù | six |
Statistics
HSK level 1
Appears in 50.7288% of movies
793rd most common character in movies
478th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 4 |
Unicode | U+516D |
Shuowen | “六,《易》之數,陰變於六,正於八。从入,从八。” |
Sources
黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》p.635-637
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