爲 - Dong Chinese dictionary

wèi, wéi

Original form of 為. Pictograph of a hand (又) guiding an elephant (象) to do work (in ancient China elephants were tamed to do work). Based on the meaning "to work; to do".

Components

又 Iconic component

yòu

(hand), again

Depicts a hand.

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 又 than it was in ancient scripts.

象 Iconic component

xiàng

elephant

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 象 than it was in ancient scripts.

Evolution

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Regular script

Modern

Definitions

爲

wèi

do, handle, govern, act; be

为 (爲)

wéi

variant of 為|为[wéi]; as (i.e. in the capacity of); to take sth as; to act as; to serve as; to behave as; to become; to be; to do

为 (爲)

wèi

variant of 為|为[wèi], because of; for; to

Most common words with 爲

Freq.	Word	Meaning
	为	to act as
	因为	because
	为什么	why?
	认为	to believe
	为了	in order to

Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 99.9680% of movies

27th most common character in movies

18th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes	12
Unicode	U+7232
Shuowen	“爲，母猴也，其爲禽好爪，爪，母猴象也；下腹為母猴形。王育曰：‘爪，象形也。’，古文爲，象兩母猴相對形。”

Sources

MTSU Chinese text computing

季旭昇《說文新證》p.194

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Meaning