wèi
officer
Original meaning:
to iron
Depicts a hand (寸) holding fire (火) to smoothen out fabric. Based on the original meaning "to iron", now written as 熨. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Components
Evolution
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernMost common words with 尉
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
captain (military rank) | ||
lieutenant (navy) | ||
military officer | ||
surname Wei | ||
second lieutenant (army rank) |
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
李学勤《字源》p.893
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