Chinese Character Wiki
尉

wèi

officer

Original meaning: 

to iron

Depicts a hand (寸) holding two stones over fire (火) to iron a person's (尸) back as a treatment for a disease. Based on the original meaning "to iron", now written as 熨. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
尸 iconic component

尸  Iconic component

shī

  

sitting person

Depicts a person sitting or squatting.

◎ iconic component

◎  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Depicts two pieces of small elliptical stones.

火 iconic component

火  Iconic component

huǒ

  

fire

Modern form looks like unrelated 小.

寸 iconic component

寸  Iconic component

cùn

  

(hand), inch

Depicts a hand.

Evolution

尉 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

尉  

wèi

officer, military rank; military officer

尉  

Wèi

surname Wei

Most common words with 尉
Freq.
Word
Meaning

上尉

captain (military rank)

中尉

lieutenant (navy)

校尉

military officer

尉

surname Wei

少尉

second lieutenant (army rank)

Component uses

Sound component in 3 characters (1 verified)

熨 慰 蔚

Iconic component in 1 character (1 verified)

熨

Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 7.6886% of movies

1453rd most common character in movies

2126th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

11

Unicode

U+5C09

Shuowen

“尉，从上案下也。从、又，持火以尉申繒也。”
Sources

林志強《《文源》評注》p.266

黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》p.3200



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