dì
supreme ruler
Original meaning:
stem of a plant
Depicts the calyx or sepals of a plant. Similar in origin to 不. Based on the original meaning "stem of a plant", now written as 蒂. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Component uses
Meaning component in 1 character (1 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*tˤek-s | tejH | dì | God |
Statistics
HSK level 6
Appears in 61.8933% of movies
431st most common character in movies
612th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 9 |
Unicode | U+5E1D |
Shuowen | “帝,諦也。王天下之號也。从丄,朿聲。,古文帝。古文諸丄字皆从一,篆文皆从,,古文上字。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.46
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