shuāicuī

decline

Original meaning: 

raincoat made from straw or grass

Depicts a woven raincoat () made from either grass or straw. Based on the original meaning "raincoat made from straw or grass", now written as . The meaning later shifted to "weaken" and "decline".

Components
衣 iconic component

  Iconic component

  

clothes

◎ iconic component

  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Depicts woven grass or straw.

Evolution

衰 Bronze script Western Zhou (1045-771 BC)

Bronze script

Western Zhou (1045-771 BC)
衰 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

shuāi

decline, falter, decrease; weaken; to decline; to wane; to become weak or feeble

 

cuī

mourning garments

Most common words with 衰
Freq.
Word
Meaning

to wane

衰老

to age

衰竭

organ failure

衰退

to decline

衰落

to fall

Component uses

Sound component in 2 characters (0 verified)

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[s.r̥]ˤruj

tshwoj

cuī

mourning clothes

*[tsʰ]roj

tsrhjwe

cuī

reduce

*sruj

srwij

shuāi

diminish, decline


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 9.0021% of movies

2071st most common character in movies

1702nd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

10

Unicode

U+8870

Shuowen

“衰,艸雨衣。秦謂之萆。从衣象形。,古文衰。”


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