Chinese Character Wiki
寺

sì

temple

Original meaning: 

to hold

Phonosemantic compound. 寸 represents the meaning and 之 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "to hold", now written as 持. The current meaning "temple" is a phonetic loan.

Components
寸 meaning component

寸  Meaning component

cùn

  

(hand), inch

Depicts a hand.

之 sound component

之  Sound component

zhī

  

[attributive particle]

Evolution

寺 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

寺  

sì

court, office; temple, monastery; Buddhist temple; mosque; government office (old)

Most common words with 寺
Freq.
Word
Meaning

寺

mosque

寺庙

temple

清真寺

mosque

寺院

cloister

少林寺

Shaolin Temple, Buddhist monastery famous for its kung fu monks

Component uses

Sound component in 11 characters (7 verified)

時 等 特 持 待 詩 诗 侍 峙 恃 痔

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*s-[d]əʔ-s

ziH

sì

hall


Statistics

HSK level 6

Appears in 2.3707% of movies

2507th most common character in movies

1892nd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

6

Unicode

U+5BFA

Shuowen

“寺，廷也，有法度者也。从寸，之聲。”


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