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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

之

zhī
to go
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 10
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 丿
  • 4 strokes
  • の

Etymology graph

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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 止 (“foot”) + 一 (“the beginning place”), originally written as 㞢; compound meaning “to go”. Hence, the character was similar to 出.

Eventually, the footprint pointing upwards became a point, as in the right component of 往 (which, in this case, is unrelated to 主).

See also 帀, which probably comes from the inverted version of 㞢. See also 乏, which is thought to derive from a modification of the upper component 一.

; demonstrative pronoun "this; he; she; it"

; "to go; to proceed"

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese止 “foot”
  • ideaChinese一 “one”

Words built on it: 時, 市, 之前, 臺, 之一, 志, 之中, 之後, 之外, 之下

Meanings

character
  1. to go
  2. to sprout; to come about
  3. this; these
  4. Indicates that the previous word has possession of the next one.
  5. Indicates that the previous word modifies the next one.
  6. particle indicating that the preceding element is specialised or qualified by the next

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

之：出也。象艸過屮，枝莖益大，有所之。一者，地也。凡之之屬皆从之。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 到、往。 例：滕文公為世子，將之楚，過宋而見孟子。（《孟子．滕文公上》）
  2. 代詞。代替人或事物。 例：置之不理、言之有理
  3. 助詞。相當於白話中的「的」。 例：媒妁之言、赤子之心

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 之 was written 字形演變

  1. 之 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 之 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 之 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 之 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 之 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 之 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 之