Chinese Character Wiki
妾

qiè

concubine

Depicts a woman (女) with a damaged reputation (䇂 is a pictograph of a tool used to tattoo the face of criminals as punishment).

Components
䇂 iconic component

䇂  Iconic component

qiān

  

sickle, curved blade

女 iconic component

女  Iconic component

nǚ, rǔ

  

woman

Evolution

妾 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
妾 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
妾 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

妾  

qiè

concubine; I, your servant (deprecatory self-reference for women)

Most common words with 妾
Freq.
Word
Meaning

妾

concubine

妻妾

harem

纳妾

to take a concubine

Component uses

Sound component in 4 characters (1 verified)

接 霎 唼 踥

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[tsʰ]ap

tshjep

qiè

concubine


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

3242nd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

8

Unicode

U+59BE

Shuowen

“妾，有辠女子，給事之得接於君者。从，从女。《春秋》云：‘女為人妾，妾不娉也。’”


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