Chinese Character Wiki
以

yǐ

by means of

Original meaning: 

carry

Depicts a person (人) carrying something.

Components
◎ iconic component

◎  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Depicts something being carried.

人 iconic component

人  Iconic component

rén

  

person

Evolution

以 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

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

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

以  

yǐ

by means of; thereby, therefore; consider as; in order to; to use; according to; because of; at (a certain date or place)

以  

Yǐ

abbr. for Israel 以色列[Yǐ​sè​liè]

以 (㕥) 

yǐ

old variant of 以[yǐ]

Most common words with 以
Freq.
Word
Meaning

可以

can

以

to use

所以

therefore

以为

to think (i.e. to take it to be true that ...) (Usually there is an implication that the notion is mistaken – except when expressing one's own current opinion.)

以前

before

Component uses

Sound component in 4 characters (2 verified)

似 姒 拟 苡

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*ləʔ

yiX

yǐ

take, use


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 99.9199% of movies

44th most common character in movies

23rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

4

Unicode

U+4EE5

Shuowen

“，用也。从反已。賈侍中說，已，意已實也。象形。”


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