shè

society

Original meaning: 

god of soil

Originally depicted a god () of the soil (). The meaning later shifted to "shrine", "congregation", and "society".

Components
礻 meaning component

  Meaning component

shì

  

show

is a component form of .

土 sound,meaning component

  Sound Meaning component

  

earth

Evolution

社 Bronze script Late Warring States (~250 BC)

Bronze script

Late Warring States (~250 BC)
社 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

shè

god of the soil and altars to him; group of families; company, society; society; group; club; agency; (old) god of the land

Most common words with 社
Freq.
Word
Meaning

社会

society

社区

community

新华社

Xinhua News Agency

社会主义

socialism

society

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*m-tʰAʔ

dzyaeX

shè

sacrifice to the spirit of the soil


Statistics

HSK level 5

Appears in 36.8573% of movies

980th most common character in movies

270th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

7

Unicode

U+793E

Shuowen

“社,地主也。从示、土。《春秋傳》曰:‘共工之子句龍為社神。’《周禮》:‘二十五家為社,各樹其土所宜之木。’,古文社。”


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