xié
evil
Original meaning:
place name
Phonosemantic compound. 牙 represents the sound and ⻏ represents the meaning. Based on the original use as a place name. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Evolution

Bronze script
Late Warring States (~250 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 邪
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
---|---|---|
sinister | ||
demonic | ||
evil cult | ||
to mend one's ways (idiom) | ||
evil influence |
Component uses
Meaning component in 1 character (0 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*sə.ɢA | zjae | xié | awry |
*sə.la | zjo | xú | walk slowly |
*ɢ(r)A | yae | yá | 琅邪 (name of a mountain in Shāndōng) |
*[ɢ](r)A | yae | yé | (interrogative particle) |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
Appears in 17.8760% of movies
1441st most common character in movies
1539th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 6 |
Unicode | U+90AA |
Shuowen | “邪,琅邪郡。从邑,牙聲。” |
Sources
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