bèi
sea shell
Pictograph of a cowrie shell. In ancient China such shells were used as currency.
Evolution
Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 貝
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
treasure | ||
cowrie | ||
Bell (person name) | ||
Nobel (Prize) | ||
"Becks", nickname of British footballer David Beckham (see 貝克漢姆|贝克汉姆[Bèikèhànmǔ]) |
Component uses
Meaning component in 54 characters (25 verified)
真 資 質 費 責 责 財 貨 貴 賽 購 貿 贊 賴 賞 貼 賀 贏 賭 賈 賜 賺 貯 賁 𧸇 貧 貢 貸 賠 賦 賢 贈 賬 販 貶 賄 賤 贖 賃 賂 贓 貽 貳 贍 賑 賒 贗 齎 賅 贄 貲 嗩 賚 賙
Unknown component in 1 character (0 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*pˤa[t]-s | pajH | bèi | cowry shell |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
Appears in 63.3670% of movies
395th most common character in movies
1133rd most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 7 |
Simplified | |
Unicode | U+8C9D |
Shuowen | “貝，海介蟲也。居陸名猋，在水名蜬。象形。古者貨貝而寶龜，周而有泉，至秦廢貝行錢。” |
Sources
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