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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

史

shǐ
history
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 4
  • radical 口
  • 5 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

Pictogram (象形) – 又 (OC *ɢʷɯs, “hand”) holding a stylized flag almost identical to 中 (OC *tuŋ, *tuŋs) perhaps to indicate a representative or ambassador (see its variant 吏 used in 使 to mean "ambassador"). As an alternative, it holds either a pen or a hunting weapon resembling similar to 中. Hence, the inner component 中 is partly unclear.

The whole character originally indicates the act of taking notes; today, it means "history". Compare 事.

;"to send, to employ, to cause"

;"scribe, historian"

:Alternatively, Unger (1990) and Starostin & Peiros (1996) derived 史 (OC *srɯʔ) "scribe, secretary" from 理 (OC *rɯʔ) "to mark, to draw lines", which, while cognate with Tibetan འབྲི ('bri, “to write, to draw”), apparently never meant "to write, to record".

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

Related: Tibetan འབྲི

Words built on it: 歷史

Meanings

character
  1. history
  2. court historian; scribe
  3. historical record; book recording history
  4. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

史：記事者也。从又持中。中，正也。凡史之屬皆从史。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 古代掌管文書、記事等的官吏。 例：太史、左史、右史
  2. 過去的時事、事蹟。 例：歷史
  3. 記載過去事跡的書籍。 例：正史、通史、野史
  4. 姓。

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

How 史 was written 字形演變

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