zāi

final exclamatory particle

Components
口 meaning component

  Meaning component

kǒu

  

mouth

mouth

Evolution

哉 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
哉 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

zāi

final exclamatory particle; (exclamatory or interrogative particle)

Most common words with 哉
Freq.
Word
Meaning

(exclamatory or interrogative particle)

善哉

excellent

悠哉悠哉

free and unconstrained (idiom)

呜呼哀哉

alas

优哉游哉

free and unconstrained (idiom)

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[ts]ˤə

tsoj

zāi

begin

*[ts]ˤə

tsoj

zāi

(particle)


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

2758th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+54C9

Shuowen

“哉,言之閒也。从口,聲。”


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