Chinese Character Wiki
妻

qī, qì

wife

Pictograph of a hand grabbing a woman's hair to take her as a wife. In ancient China, women of marriageable age wore hairpins (compare with 每).

Components
◎ iconic component

◎  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Depicts a woman's hair.

又 iconic component

又  Iconic component

yòu

  

(hand), again

Depicts a hand grabbing a woman's hair.

女 iconic component

女  Iconic component

nǚ, rǔ

  

woman

Evolution

妻 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

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

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

妻  

qī

wife

妻  

qì

to marry off (a daughter)

Most common words with 妻
Freq.
Word
Meaning

妻子

wife

夫妻

husband and wife

妻

wife

前妻

ex-wife

未婚妻

fiancée

Component uses

Sound component in 5 characters (0 verified)

凄 悽 淒 棲 萋

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[tsʰ]ˤəj

tshej

qī

consort, wife

*[tsʰ]ˤəj-s

tshejH

qì

give as wife


Statistics

HSK level 4

Appears in 47.9577% of movies

698th most common character in movies

1076th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

8

Unicode

U+59BB

Shuowen

“妻，婦與夫齊者也。从女，从屮，从又。又，持事，妻職也。，古文妻从、女。，古文貴字。”


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