Chinese Character Wiki
是

shì

is

Origin unclear. The bottom component 止 represents the sound.

Components
旦 unknown component

旦  Unknown component

dàn

  

dawn

The purpose of this component is unclear.

止 sound component

止  Sound component

zhǐ

  

(foot), stop

Evolution

是 Bronze script Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
是 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

是  

shì

indeed, yes, right; to be; demonstrative pronoun, this, that; is; are; am; yes

是 (昰) 

shì

variant of 是[shì]; (used in given names)

Most common words with 是
Freq.
Word
Meaning

是

is

就是

precisely

但是

but

还是

or

不是

no

Component uses

Meaning component in 2 characters (0 verified)

韙 韪

Sound component in 13 characters (6 verified)

提 題 题 匙 緹 缇 堤 隄 醍 鞮 鯷 鳀 踶

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[d]eʔ

dzyeX

shì

this


Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 100.0000% of movies

4th most common character in movies

3rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+662F

Shuowen

“是，直也。从日、正。昰，籀文是，从古文正。”


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons License