zhì
swine
Original meaning:
wild boar
Depicts a pig or a wild boar being shot by an arrow (矢). Wild boars were common targets for hunting. 矢 also represents the sound.
Components
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[l]r[a][t]-s | drjejH | zhì | pig |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
6104th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 12 |
Unicode | U+5F58 |
Shuowen | “彘,豕也,後蹏廢謂之彘。从彑,矢聲,从二匕。彘足與鹿足同。” |
Sources
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

