Chinese Character Wiki
尔

ěr

you

Simplified form of 爾. Pictograph of a sharp weapon with a sharp head and tail decorations on the end. Similar in origin to 朿. Original meaning unclear.

Evolution

尔 Bronze script Late Warring States (~250 BC)

Bronze script

Late Warring States (~250 BC)
尔 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

尔 (爾) 

ěr

you; that, those; final particle; thus; so; like that; thou

尔 (尒) 

ěr

variant of 爾|尔[ěr]

Most common words with 尔
Freq.
Word
Meaning

尔

thus

偶尔

occasionally

高尔夫

golf (loanword)

哈尔滨

Harbin, subprovincial city and capital of Heilongjiang province 黑龍江|黑龙江[Hēi​lóng​jiāng] in northeast China

比尔

Bill (name)

Component uses

Meaning component in 3 characters (1 verified)

你 妳 袮

Sound component in 5 characters (2 verified)

你 玺 弥 迩 祢

Simplified component in 1 character (1 verified)

称

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*n[ə][r]ʔ

nyeX

ěr

you(r)


Statistics

HSK level 5

Appears in 60.7560% of movies

198th most common character in movies

220th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

5

Traditional

爾

Unicode

U+5C14

Shuowen

“尒，詞之必然也。从入、丨、八，八象气之分散。”
Sources

季旭昇《說文新證》p.259

董蓮池《說文解字考正》p.129

張亞初《商周古文字源流疏證》p.1931-1932



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