Chinese Character Wiki
則

zé

rule

Original meaning: 

law

Depicts carving inscriptions on bronzeware (鼎) with a knife (刂). Based on the original meaning "law". In ancient China, some legal writings were inscribed on bronzeware.

Components
鼎 iconic,remnant component

鼎  Iconic Remnant component

dǐng

  

cooking pot

Modern form looks like unrelated 貝.

刂 iconic component

刂  Iconic component

dāo

  

knife

刂 is a component form of 刀.

Evolution

則 Bronze script Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
則 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
則 Clerical script Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)

Clerical script

Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)
則 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

则 (則) 

zé

rule, law, regulation; grades; (conjunction used to express contrast with a previous clause) but; then; standard; norm; principle; to imitate; to follow; classifier for written items

Most common words with 則
Freq.
Word
Meaning

则

then

否则

if not

规则

rule

原则

principle

准则

norm

Component uses

Sound component in 5 characters (2 verified)

測 廁 側 惻 鰂

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[ts]ˤək

tsok

zé

then

*[ts]ˤək

tsok

zé

rule, pattern


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 59.8270% of movies

723rd most common character in movies

284th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Simplified

则

Unicode

U+5247

Shuowen

“則，等畫物也。从刀，从貝。貝，古之物貨也。，古文則。，亦古文則。，籀文則从鼎。”


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