Chinese Character Wiki
必

bì

surely

Pictograph of a weapon, now written as 柲. Similar to 戈. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Evolution

必 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
必 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

必  

bì

surely, most certainly; must; certainly; will; necessarily

Most common words with 必
Freq.
Word
Meaning

必须

must

必要

necessary

不必

need not

必

must

必然

inevitable

Component uses

Sound component in 10 characters (4 verified)

祕 秘 宓 柲 瑟 泌 謐 谧 毖 铋

Iconic component in 1 character (1 verified)

柲

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*pi[t]

pjit

bì

necessarily


Statistics

HSK level 5

Appears in 90.7737% of movies

283rd most common character in movies

248th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

5

Unicode

U+5FC5

Shuowen

“必，分極也。从八、弋，弋亦聲。”


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