Chinese Character Wiki
戲

xì

play

Original meaning: 

military troops outside the main group

Phonosemantic compound. 戈 represents the meaning and 䖒 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "military troops outside the main group". The meaning later shifted to "sport" and "play".

Components
䖒 sound component

䖒  Sound component

xī

  

earthenware with the shape of a bean

戈 meaning component

戈  Meaning component

gē

  

spear

Evolution

戲 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
戲 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
戲 Clerical script Cao Wei (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)

Clerical script

Cao Wei (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)
戲 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

戏 (戲) 

xì

theatrical play, show; trick; drama; play; show; CL:齣|出[chū],場|场[chǎng],臺|台[tái]

Most common words with 戲
Freq.
Word
Meaning

游戏

game

戏

trick

戏剧

drama

演戏

to perform

把戏

acrobatics

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*ŋ̊(r)ar-s

xjeH

xì

sport, joke


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 59.8590% of movies

587th most common character in movies

1033rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

17

Simplified

戏

Unicode

U+6232

Shuowen

“戲，三軍之偏也。一曰兵也。从戈，聲。”


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