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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

迷

mí
to get lost
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 辵
  • 10 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *miː): semantic 辵 (“walk”) + phonetic 米 (OC *miːʔ)

Compare Mizo hmaih (“to overlook, miss, forget”), Burmese မေ့ (me., “to forget”). Related also (Schuessler 2007, p. 381):

* 謎 (OC *miː, *miːs, “mystery”)

* 眯 (OC *miːʔ, “to get something in the eye”)

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese辵 “to walk for a while and be still for a while”
    • ideaChinese彳 “to walk slowly”
    • ideaChinese止 “foot”
  • soundChinese米 “hulled or husked uncooked rice (Classifier: 粒 m c mn; 顆／颗 m)”

Related: Mizo hmaih, Burmese မေ့

Words built on it: 球迷, 迷人

Meanings

character
  1. to get lost
  2. to confuse; to bewilder
  3. to bewitch; to charm; to infatuate
  4. to be obsessed; to be crazy about
  5. confused; bewildered
  6. obsessed; crazy about

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

迷：或也。从辵米聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 困惑、惑亂。 例：財迷心竅、酒色迷人
  2. 分辨不清的、令人困惑的。 例：迷途、迷宮
  3. 沉醉、陶醉。 例：著迷、入迷、沉迷
  4. 醉心於某種事物的人。 例：影迷、球迷、歌迷
  5. 心中昏亂、意識模糊。 例：昏迷、意亂情迷

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

How 迷 was written 字形演變

  1. 迷 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  2. 迷 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 迷 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 迷