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

希

xī

original form of 稀 (xī, “rare; sparse”)

Ideogrammatic compound 會意
HSK 3
radical 巾
7 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

Originally 𢁫, ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 爻 + 巾 (“cloth”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

ideaChinese爻 “a figure composed of six stacked horizontal lines; a hexagram of the I Ching”
- componentChinese乂 “original form of 刈 (yì, “to weed; to mow”)”
ideaChinese巾 “a square item of cloth; towel; kerchief”

Words built on it: 希望

Meanings

character

original form of 稀 (xī, “rare; sparse”)
to hope; to expect; to strive for
to admire; to look up to
Used in transcription.
synonym of 絺 /𫄨

國語辭典 definitions

少有、不多。通「稀」。例：希罕、希有
盼望、仰慕。例：希求、希冀、希望

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

How 希 was written 字形演變

Qin slips
秦系簡牘
Qin
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
Written form — n/a
Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
Wiktionary: 希