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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

失

shī
to lose; to lose track of; to mislay
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 7
  • radical 大
  • 5 strokes

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Origin

Pictogram (象形) depicting a footprint of someone that has fallen surrounded by drops of blood (Ji Xusheng, 2004).

Alternatively, according to Shuowen, Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 手 + 乙 — something falling from a hand (手). However, the original form doesn't show any hand.

Cognate with 佚 (OC *liɡ, “to escape; to lose”), 逸 (OC *lid, “to escape; at ease”) (Schuessler, 2007).

Probably Sino-Tibetan; compare Cogtse Situ [Term?] (ka-ʃlə̂k, “to fall (from hand)”), Japhug ɕlɯɣ (“to fall; to slip”) (Zhang, Jacques, and Lai, 2019).

Note also Thai เล็ดลอด (lét-lɔ̂ɔt, “to sneak; to escape by stealth”) (Manomaivibool, 1975).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese手 “hand (Classifier: 隻／只 m c mn; 雙／双 m mn; 對／对 c)”
  • ideaChinese乙 “The second of the ten heavenly stems (天干 (tiāngān))”

Related: Japhug ɕlɯɣ, Thai เล็ดลอด

Words built on it: 失去, 消失, 失望

Meanings

character
  1. to lose; to lose track of; to mislay
  2. to fail; to not succeed
  3. to breach; to violate
  4. to neglect; to miss
  5. mistake; fault; wrongdoing
  6. 75th tetragram of the Taixuanjing; "failure" (𝍐)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

失：縱也。从手乙聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 丟掉。與「得」相對。 例：遺失、喪失、失而復得
  2. 錯過、放過。 例：坐失良機、機不可失
  3. 沒有掌握住、控制好。 例：失手、失足
  4. 找不著。 例：失蹤、迷失
  5. 沒達到目的。 例：失望、失意
  6. 違背、背棄。 例：失約、失信

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

How 失 was written 字形演變

  1. 失 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 失 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 失 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 失 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 失 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: 失