it

Original meaning: 

snake

Pictograph of a snake, now written as . The current use as a pronoun is a phonetic loan.

Evolution

它 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

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

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

it; other

Most common words with 它
Freq.
Word
Meaning

it

它们

they (for inanimate objects)

其它

other

吉它

a guitar

Component uses

Meaning component in 2 characters (0 verified)

Sound component in 13 characters (1 verified)

Iconic component in 1 character (1 verified)

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*l̥ˤaj

tha

another


Statistics

HSK level 2

Appears in 95.3067% of movies

136th most common character in movies

107th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

5

Unicode

U+5B83

Shuowen

“它,虫也。从虫而長,象冤曲垂尾形。上古艸居患它,故相問無它乎。蛇,它或从虫。”


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