xī
exclamatory particle
Origin unclear. Likely depicts two lines of air (八) blowing through branches (丂), indicating the sound of wind. Possibly similar in origin to 乎.
Components
Evolution
Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernMost common words with 兮
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
(particle in old Chinese similar to 啊) | ||
(particle used to exaggerate certain adjectives, in particular 神經兮兮|神经兮兮, 髒兮兮|脏兮兮, 可憐兮兮|可怜兮兮, and 慘兮兮|惨兮兮) | ||
dirty |
Component uses
Meaning component in 1 character (1 verified)
Sound component in 1 character (0 verified)
Unknown component in 1 character (1 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*gˤe | hej | xī | (final particle) |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
Appears in 4.5171% of movies
2234th most common character in movies
2772nd most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 4 |
Unicode | U+516E |
Shuowen | “兮，語所稽也。从丂、八，象气越亏也。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.392
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