liù

six

Origin unclear. Various explainations include (1) possibly derives from (enter), with two strokes on the bottom to distinguish it from (enter) or (2) a pictograph of a hut, which is thought to be the original form of . Either way, the current meaning is a phoentic loan.

Evolution

六 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
六 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
六 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

liù

number six; six; 6

Most common words with 六
Freq.
Word
Meaning

six

周六

Saturday

六月

June

星期六

Saturday

六合

the universe

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*k.ruk

ljuwk

liù

six


Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 50.7288% of movies

793rd most common character in movies

478th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

4

Unicode

U+516D

Shuowen

“六,《易》之數,陰變於六,正於八。从入,从八。”


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