wèi

officer

Original meaning: 

to iron

Depicts a hand () holding fire () to smoothen out fabric. Based on the original meaning "to iron", now written as . The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
◎ iconic component

  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Depicts a piece of fabric.

火 iconic component

  Iconic component

huǒ

  

fire

Modern form looks like unrelated .

寸 iconic component

  Iconic component

cùn

  

(hand), inch

Depicts a hand.

Evolution

尉 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

wèi

officer, military rank; military officer

 

Wèi

surname Wei

Most common words with 尉
Freq.
Word
Meaning

上尉

captain (military rank)

中尉

lieutenant (navy)

校尉

military officer

surname Wei

少尉

second lieutenant (army rank)

Component uses

Sound component in 3 characters (0 verified)

Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 7.6886% of movies

1453rd most common character in movies

2126th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

11

Unicode

U+5C09

Shuowen

“尉,从上案下也。从、又,持火以尉申繒也。”


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