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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

貴

guì
expensive; costly
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 1
  • radical 貝
  • 12 strokes

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Origin

Simplified from 䝿 (臾 → 𠀐). Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *kluds): phonetic 臾 (OC *ɡruds, *lo) + semantic 貝 (“money cowrie”).

From Sino-Tibetan; compare Tibetan གུས (gus, “respect, reverence, devotion”) (Schuessler, 2007; STEDT).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • simplified fromChinese䝿
  • soundChinese臾 “used in 須臾／须臾 (xūyú, “a moment; an instant; a short while”)”
    • ideaChinese𦥑 “to clasp one's hands together in front of one's chest”
    • ideaChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”
  • meaningChinese貝 “shellfish; cowrie”

Related: Tibetan གུས

Meanings

character
  1. expensive; costly
  2. precious; valuable
  3. superior; noble
  4. to regard as valuable; to highly value
  5. your (to a deity, person or establishment)
  6. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

貴：物不賤也。从貝臾聲。臾，古文蕢。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 價錢高。與「賤」相對。 例：昂貴、賤買貴賣
  2. 地位崇高、優越。 例：貴族、貴賓、高貴
  3. 敬辭，稱與對方相關的事物。 例：貴姓、貴國、貴寶地
  4. 尊顯的人或地位。 例：權貴
  5. 注重、重視。 例：學貴有恆、人貴自立

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

How 貴 was written 字形演變

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