zéi

thief

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound. Simplified form of .

Components
戎 meaning component

  Meaning component

róng

  

arms

贝 sound component

  Sound component

bèi

  

sea shell

Evolution

贼 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
贼 Traditional script Modern

Traditional script

Modern
贼 Simplified script Modern

Simplified script

Modern
Definitions

() 

zéi

thief, traitor; thief; traitor; wily; deceitful; evil; extremely

Most common words with 贼
Freq.
Word
Meaning

thief

盗贼

robber

海贼

pirate

窃贼

thief

乌贼

cuttlefish

Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 9.0021% of movies

1903rd most common character in movies

2001st most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

10

Traditional

Unicode

U+8D3C


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