kuì, guì
empty, lacking
Original meaning:
box
Phonosemantic compound. 匚 represents the meaning and 貴 represents the sound.
Evolution

Seal script
Chu (Warring States: 475-221 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 匱
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
---|---|---|
to be deficient in sth | ||
to lack | ||
to be deficient in sth | ||
to be short of sth | ||
exhausted |
Component uses
Sound component in 1 character (1 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[g]ruj-s | gwijH | guì | box (n.) |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
3727th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 14 |
Simplified | |
Unicode | U+5331 |
Shuowen | “匱,匣也。从匚,貴聲。” |
Sources
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

