noun

Meanings

  1. 1 (classical) joyful; merry
  2. 2 (classical) posthumous temple name, e.g. Duke Xi

Examples

Lǔ Xī gōng zài wèi yú Chūnqiū shíqī.
Duke Xi of Lu reigned in the Spring and Autumn period.

Tips

history
is not used independently in modern Chinese. It meant joyful, essentially a -side writing of , and survives mainly as a posthumous temple title of rulers such as and as a surname.
register
Historical and onomastic; you see it in dynastic names and old records, not in speech.

Components

radical
rén
person
is the person radical, a left-side form of , added because the word came to be applied to a person and used in posthumous titles.
phonetic
joy; happiness
supplies both the sound and the meaning of joy; the reading shifts slightly from to .

Stroke Order