色 - Dong Chinese dictionary

sè, shǎi

color

Original meaning:

press down

Depicts a kneeling person (卩) being pushed down by a hand (爪). Based on the original meaning "press down", now written as 抑. The current meaning "color" is a phonetic loan.

Components

爪 Iconic component

zhǎo, zhuǎ

hand, claw

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

卩 Iconic component

jié

person kneeling

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

Evolution

Bronze script

Late Spring and Autumn (~500 BC)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Regular script

Modern

Definitions

色

sè

color, tint, hue, shade; form, body; beauty, desire for beauty; color; CL:種|种[zhǒng]; look; appearance; sex

色

shǎi

dice

Most common words with 色

Freq.	Word	Meaning
	出色	remarkable
	角色	role
	色	color
	颜色	color
	红色	red (color)

Component uses

Meaning component in 3 characters (0 verified)

艳艷艴

Sound component in 1 character (0 verified)

铯

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese	Middle Chinese	Pinyin	Gloss
*s.rək	srik	sè	color; countenance

Statistics

HSK level 4

Appears in 81.4672% of movies

338th most common character in movies

304th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes	6
Unicode	U+8272
Shuowen	“色，顏气也。从人，从卪。，古文。”

Sources

MTSU Chinese text computing

季旭昇《說文新證》p.711-712

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Original meaning:

Freq.

Word

Meaning