Chinese Character Wiki
惟

wéi

but

Original meaning: 

to think

Phonosemantic compound. 忄 represents the meaning and 隹 represents the sound. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
忄 meaning component

忄  Meaning component

xin, xīn

  

heart

忄 is a component form of 心.

隹 sound component

隹  Sound component

zhuī

  

bird

Evolution

惟 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
惟 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

惟  

wéi

but, however, nevertheless; only; -ism

Most common words with 惟
Freq.
Word
Meaning

惟一

only

惟

-ism

惟有

only

惟妙惟肖

to imitate to perfection

惟独

only

Component uses

Sound component in 1 character (0 verified)

罹

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*ɢʷij

ywij

wéi

(copula); namely


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 1.4416% of movies

3154th most common character in movies

1856th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

11

Unicode

U+60DF

Shuowen

“惟，凡思也。从心，隹聲。”


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