Chinese Character Wiki
質

zhì

nature, substance

Original meaning: 

pledge, pawn

Phonosemantic compound. 斦 represents the sound and 貝 represents the meaning.

Components
斦 sound component

斦  Sound component

zhì

  

chopping block

貝 meaning component

貝  Meaning component

bèi

  

sea shell

In ancient China shells were used as currency.

Evolution

質 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
質 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

质 (質) 

zhì

matter, material, substance; character; nature; quality; plain; to pawn; pledge; hostage; to question; Taiwan pr. [zhí]

Most common words with 質
Freq.
Word
Meaning

质量

quality

物质

matter

人质

hostage

质

nature

质疑

to call into question

Component uses

Sound component in 2 characters (1 verified)

櫍 躓

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[t]<r>ip-s

trijH

zhì

hostage; gift

*t-lit

tsyit

zhì

substance, solid part


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 43.2164% of movies

905th most common character in movies

404th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

15

Simplified

质

Unicode

U+8CEA

Shuowen

“質，以物相贅，从貝，从斦。闕。”


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