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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

拜

/paɪ̯⁵¹/
to do obeisance; to bow; to kowtow
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 5
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 手
  • 9 strokes

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Origin

Originally 𢱭. Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 扌 (“hand”) + 𠦪 (“herbs”), a hand holding herbs as a gift. 𣬓 and 𢫶 are variant forms showing the hands at the bottom.

; "to bow"

; "byte"

; "bye"

; "day of the week"

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𠦪 “swift”

Meanings

character
  1. to do obeisance; to bow; to kowtow
  2. to pray to; to worship
  3. to establish a relationship
  4. Used before a verb to show respect.
  5. byte
  6. bye; goodbye

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 一種禮節行為
  2. 訪問人或看望人的客氣說法。 例：回拜、拜見
  3. 恭賀。 例：拜壽、拜年
  4. 奉派任官、授予職位。 例：他官拜少校。

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

How 拜 was written 字形演變

  1. 拜 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 拜 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 拜 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 拜 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 拜 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 拜