bì
surely
Pictograph of a weapon, now written as 柲. Similar to 戈. 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
Iconic component in 1 character (1 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*pi[t] | pjit | bì | necessarily |
Statistics
HSK level 5
Appears in 90.7737% of movies
283rd most common character in movies
248th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 5 |
Unicode | U+5FC5 |
Shuowen | “必,分極也。从八、弋,弋亦聲。” |
Sources
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