Chinese Character Wiki
吸

xī

inhale

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 及 represents the sound.

Components
口 meaning component

口  Meaning component

kǒu

  

mouth

及 sound component

及  Sound component

jí

  

extend

Evolution

吸 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

吸  

xī

inhale, suck in; absorb; attract; to breathe; to suck in; to absorb; to inhale

Most common words with 吸
Freq.
Word
Meaning

吸引

to attract (interest, investment etc)

呼吸

to breathe

吸

to breathe

吸收

to absorb

吸血鬼

leech

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*qʰ(r)əp

xip

xī

inhale


Statistics

HSK level 4

Appears in 59.5547% of movies

578th most common character in movies

924th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

6

Unicode

U+5438

Shuowen

“吸，內息也。从口，及聲。”


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