Chinese Character Wiki
哀

āi, aī

sad; pity

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 衣 represents the sound.

Components
衣 sound component

衣  Sound component

yī, yì

  

clothes

口 meaning component

口  Meaning component

kǒu

  

mouth

mouth

Evolution

哀 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

哀  

āi

sad, mournful, pitiful; pity; sorrow; grief; to grieve for; to pity; to lament; to condole

哀  

Aī

Ai (c. 2000 BC), sixth of legendary Flame Emperors 炎帝[Yán​dì] descended from Shennong 神農|神农[Shén​nóng] Farmer God, also known as Li 釐|厘[Lí]

Most common words with 哀
Freq.
Word
Meaning

悲哀

grieved

哀悼

mourning

哀

sorrow

哀伤

grief

哀求

to entreat

Component uses

Sound component in 1 character (0 verified)

锿

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*ʔˤəj

'oj

āi

to pity; sad


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 12.1416% of movies

1928th most common character in movies

1751st most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+54C0

Shuowen

“哀，閔也。从口，衣聲。”


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