Dong Chinese dictionary

de, dī, dí, dì

[possessive]

Original meaning:

bright

Originally written as 旳. Phonosemantic compound. 日 represents the meaning and 勺 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "bright". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

日 Meaning component

rì

sun

日 hints at the original meaning of 的, "bright", which is no longer the most common meaning of 的 in modern Mandarin.

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 日 than it was in ancient scripts.

勺 Sound component

sháo

spoon

的 and 勺 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in older Chinese.的 /*[t-l]ˤewk/
勺 /*m-tewk/, /*tewk/

Evolution

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Regular script

Modern

Definitions

的

possessive, adjectival suffix; of; ~'s (possessive particle); (used after an attribute); (used to form a nominal expression); (used at the end of a declarative sentence for emphasis)

的

dī

see 的士[dīshì]

的

dí

really and truly

的

dì

aim; clear

Most common words with 的