Chinese Character Wiki
质

zhì

nature, substance

Original meaning: 

pledge, pawn

Simplified form of 質. Phonosemantic compound. 斦 represents the sound and 贝 represents the meaning.

Components
斤 simplified component

斤  Simplified component

jīn

  

axe

Shorthand for the phonetic 斦 component in the traditional character 質.

贝 meaning component

贝  Meaning component

bèi

  

sea shell

In ancient China shells were used as currency.

Evolution

质 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
质 Traditional script Modern

Traditional script

Modern
质 Simplified script Modern

Simplified 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 质
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)

𬃊 踬

Statistics

HSK level 4

Appears in 43.2164% of movies

905th most common character in movies

404th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

8

Traditional

質

Unicode

U+8D28


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