氏

Translingual

Stroke order

Etymology

Pictogram (象形) – a man bowing over to the left. Significantly abstracted – the middle cross was initially the knee, the stroke at bottom left was the bowed head, and the top was the back-swept hands or clothes.

Han character

氏 (radical 83 氏+0, 4 strokes, cangjie input 竹女心 (HVP), four-corner 7274₀)

1. clan, family
2. mister
3. (formerly) née, born as, maiden name

Usage

The third meaning has become largely obsolete, as current Chinese practice is for married women to continue to use their former surnames. The practice of sometimes adopting the husband's surname is being revived, however. 氏 follows the maiden name, which follows the married name — 張氏 (née Zhang), 李張氏 (Li née Zhang), or 配張氏 (married to a lady of the Zhang clan).

Derived characters

• Index:Chinese radical/氏
• See also 氐#Derived characters

References

• KangXi: page 597, character 18
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 17026
• Dae Jaweon: page 988, character 30
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 3, page 2130, character 1
• Unihan data for U+6C0F

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Cantonese

Hanzi

氏 (jyutping si6, zi1, Yale si6, ji1)

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Hakka

Hanzi

氏 (POJ shì, Guangdong she⁵ [Meixian], s'i⁵, s'i⁶ [Hailu], sii⁵ [Siyan], Hagfa Pinyim si4)

References

• CCDICT (Chineselanguage.org)
• Academia Sinica - Hakka-English Dictionary
• Lau, Chun-fat. Hakka Pinyin Dictionary (Chinese). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1997 (Chinese IME supplement) ISBN 962-201-750-9.

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Japanese

Kanji

氏 (grade 4 “Kyōiku” kanji)

Readings

• On: し (shi)
• Kun: うじ (uji)

Noun

氏 (hiragana し, romaji shi)

1. a family; a clan
2. Mr.; Mrs.
3. a certain person

氏 (hiragana うじ, romaji uji)

1. a family name
2. birth; lineage

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Korean

Hanja

氏 (hangeul 씨, 지, revised ssi, ji, McCune-Reischauer ssi, chi, Yale ssi, ci)

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Mandarin

Hanzi

氏 (pinyin shì (shi4), zhī (zhi1), jīng (jing1), Wade-Giles shih⁴, chi¹, ching¹)

Compounds

• 氏族 (clan)

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Vietnamese

Han character

氏 (thị)