Chinese Character Wiki
肆

sì

indulge

Original meaning: 

kill domestic animals and display them

Depicts a hand restraining a domestic animal (㣇) by holding its tail (隶). 㣇 also represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "kill domestic animals and display them". The meaning later shifted to "shop", "wanton", "unrestrained", and "indulge".

Components
㣇 sound,iconic component

㣇  Sound Iconic component

yì

  

a kind of beast with long hair

Depicts a wild animal. Modern form looks like 镸.

隶 iconic component

隶  Iconic component

dài, lì

  

subservient

Depicts a hand (又) grabbing a tail (尾). Modern form looks like 聿.

Evolution

肆 Bronze script Late Spring and Autumn (~500 BC)

Bronze script

Late Spring and Autumn (~500 BC)
肆 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

肆  

sì

indulge; excess; numeral four; particle meaning now, therefore; shop; four (banker's anti-fraud numeral); unrestrained; wanton; (literary) shop

Most common words with 肆
Freq.
Word
Meaning

大肆

wantonly

肆意

wantonly

放肆

wanton

肆虐

to wreak havoc

肆无忌惮

unbridled

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*s-ləp-s

sijH

sì

unrestrained


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 4.6612% of movies

2624th most common character in movies

2445th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

13

Unicode

U+8086

Shuowen

“，極陳也。从長，隶聲。，或从髟。”


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