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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

己

jǐ
self; oneself
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 2
  • radical 己
  • 3 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
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Origin

Pictogram (象形) – silk rope for binding objects. Original form of 紀 (OC *kɯʔ). The character must not be confused with 已 and 巳. See also 丩.

Unknown (Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese㇆
  • partChinese一 “one”
  • partChinese乚

Words built on it: 自己, 記

Meanings

character
  1. self; oneself
  2. personal; private
  3. the sixth of the ten heavenly stems
  4. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

己：中宮也。象萬物辟藏詘形也。己承戊，象人腹。凡己之屬皆从己。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 自稱，猶自己、己身。 例：知己知彼、推己及人、反求諸己
  2. 天干的第六位。
  3. 用來排列次序等第。在戊之後，表示第六。 例：己班

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

How 己 was written 字形演變

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

  • Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
  • 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: 己