習 - Dong Chinese dictionary

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简体

繁體

pīnyīn

ㄅㄆㄇㄈ

xí

to practice

Original meaning:

scorch

Phonosemantic compound. 彗 represents the sound and 日 represents the meaning. Based on the original meaning "to scorch". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

彗 Sound component

huì

broom

習 and 彗 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in older Chinese.習 /*s-ɢʷəp (with root *ɢʷəp ‘wing’?)/
彗 /*s-[ɢ]ʷe[t]-s/

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

日 Meaning component

rì

sun

日 hints at the original meaning of 習, "scorch", which is no longer the most common meaning of 習 in modern Mandarin.

Evolution

習 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)

習 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)

Regular script

Modern

Definitions

xí

practice; flapping wings; to practice; to study; habit

Xí

surname Xi

Most common words with 習

Freq.	Word	Meaning
	学习	to learn
	习惯	habit
	练习	to practice
	实习生	intern (student)
	实习	to practice

Component uses

Meaning component in 2 characters (1 verified)

Sound component in 3 characters (0 verified)

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese	Middle Chinese	Pinyin	Gloss
s-ɢʷəp (with root ɢʷəp ‘wing’?)	zip	xí	repeat; practice

Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 54.5411% of movies

737th most common character in movies

676th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes	11
Simplified	习
Unicode	U+7FD2
Shuowen	“習，數飛也。从羽，从白。”

Sources

Academia Sinica

Make Me a Hanzi

MTSU Chinese text computing

漢語多功能字庫

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