Chinese
皇帝
huángdì
emperor (any monarch ruling an empire, irrespective of gender)
- HSK 6
- TOCFL 6
Etymology graph
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Origin
Traditionally attributed to be coined by first emperor of Qin Dynasty Qin Shi Huang, who retained 皇 (huáng) from the proposed title 泰皇 (“Supreme Huang”) and combined it with 帝 (dì):
However, the compound is already attested in Western Zhou bronze inscriptions:
More information
Notably, nearly all Western Zhou bronze attestations of 秦 (Qín) — such as 秦夷 and 戍秦人 — occur on vessels associated with the 師 /师 (shī) or 訇 (hōng)/詢 /询 (xún)
From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Lineage
- characterChinese皇 “great; grand; magnificent”
- meaningChinese𤼽
- soundChinese王 “king; monarch”
- characterChinese帝 “God of Heaven”
- meaningChinese丄 “up; above”
- soundChinese朿
Sources
- 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: 皇帝