Chinese Character Wiki
旨

zhǐ

purpose

Original meaning: 

fine-tasting

Depicts a spoon (匕) going into the mouth (口), conveying the original meaning "fine-tasting". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
匕 iconic component

匕  Iconic component

bǐ

  

spoon, (person)

口 iconic component

口  Iconic component

kǒu

  

mouth

Depicts food inside the mouth.

Evolution

旨 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

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

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

旨  

zhǐ

purpose, aim; excellent; imperial decree; purport; aim; purpose

Most common words with 旨
Freq.
Word
Meaning

旨意

decree

宗旨

aim

旨在

to be intended to

主旨

gist

旨

aim

Component uses

Meaning component in 2 characters (0 verified)

詣 诣

Sound component in 8 characters (2 verified)

指 耆 脂 稽 詣 诣 酯 鮨

Iconic component in 1 character (1 verified)

嘗

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*kijʔ

tsyijX

zhǐ

fine-tasting


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 4.5811% of movies

2559th most common character in movies

1685th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

6

Unicode

U+65E8

Shuowen

“旨，美也。从甘，匕聲。，古文旨。”


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons License