Buddhist nun

Original meaning: 

stop; approach

Depicts one person () carrying another person () on their back. Based on the original meaning "stop; approach". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
尸 iconic component

  Iconic component

shī

  

sitting person

匕 iconic component

  Iconic component

  

spoon

Evolution

尼 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

Buddhist nun; transliteration; (often used in phonetic spellings)

Most common words with 尼
Freq.
Word
Meaning

Buddhist nun

尼玛

Nyima county, Tibetan: Nyi ma rdzong in Nagchu prefecture 那曲地區|那曲地区[Nà​qǔ​dì​qū], central Tibet

索尼

Sony

印尼

Indonesia (abbr. for 印度尼西亞|印度尼西亚)

丹尼

Danny (name)

Component uses

Sound component in 9 characters (2 verified)

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*nˤərʔ

nejX

to stop

*nˤərʔ-s

nejH

to stop, obstruct

*nr[əj]

nrij

near, close


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 44.9944% of movies

361st most common character in movies

654th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

5

Unicode

U+5C3C

Shuowen

“尼,從後近之。从尸,匕聲。”


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