Chinese Character Wiki
吉

jí

lucky

Original meaning: 

solid, difficult to break

Depicts a hook-shaped weapon made out of copper. Based on the original meaning "solid, difficult to break". The meaning later shifted to "good" and "lucky".

Components
士 iconic component

士  Iconic component

shì

  

scholar, soldier

Depicts a hook-shaped weapon made out of copper.

口 distinguishing component

口  Distinguishing component

kǒu

  

mouth

Evolution

吉 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
吉 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
吉 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
吉 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
吉 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

吉  

jí

lucky, propitious, good; lucky; giga- (meaning billion or 10^9)

吉  

Jí

surname Ji; abbr. for Jilin Province 吉林省[Jí​lín​Shěng]

Most common words with 吉
Freq.
Word
Meaning

吉

lucky

吉他

guitar (loanword)

吉林

also Jilin prefecture-level city, Jilin province

吉祥

lucky

吉利

lucky

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (0 verified)

喆

Sound component in 17 characters (2 verified)

結 结 喆 洁 桔 詰 诘 颉 頡 秸 髻 黠 拮 咭 佶 鲒 劼

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*C.qi[t] (*C.q- > *k-, escaping palatalization)

kjit

jí

auspicious


Statistics

HSK level 6

Appears in 29.0405% of movies

695th most common character in movies

856th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

6

Unicode

U+5409

Shuowen

“吉，善也。从士、口。”
Sources

季旭昇《說文新證》p.98-99

林志強《《文源》評注》p.93-94



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