gài
beggar
Original meaning:
cut
Variant form of 丐. Depicts the blade of a knife. Similar in origin to 亡 and 方. Based on the original meaning "cut". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Evolution
Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernComponent uses
Sound component in 1 character (1 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[k]ˤat-s | kajH | gài | beg (v.) |
*[k]ˤat | kat | gài | beg (v.) |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
Appears in 1.4256% of movies
3126th most common character in movies
2606th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 5 |
Unicode | U+5303 |
Shuowen | “匄，气也。逯安說，亡人為匄。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.873
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