兹 (zī): hereby

Meanings

1 hereby
2 now
3 this

Characters

兹

zī

this; hereby; now

Examples

兹定于下周一召开会议。

Zī dìng yú xià zhōuyī zhàokāi huìyì.

It is hereby decided that a meeting will be held next Monday.

兹证明该同学成绩合格。

Zī zhèngmíng gāi tóngxué chéngjì hégé.

This is to certify that the student's grades are satisfactory.

Tips

register

兹 is highly formal and used almost exclusively in official documents, notices, and certificates. You will rarely hear it in spoken Chinese.

usage

A separate reading cí survives only in the old Silk Road place name 龟兹 (Qiūcí, an ancient kingdom in today's Xinjiang). Everywhere else, read zī.

Components

semantic

艹 cǎo

grass; plant (top form)

Top three strokes are the grass radical in compressed form: three short strokes over a connecting horizontal that pictures sprouting plants. The original 兹 evoked lush growth, abundant grass over twined silk threads. Most dictionaries index the whole character through the doubled thread element below rather than this grass top.

semantic

幺 yāo

small; thread (left)

Lower-left 幺 is a small coiled thread or silk skein, picturing compact growth. Paired with the matching right thread below the grass top, it builds the doubled, twined image. The same coil sits in 幻, 幼, and 幽, the small-coil family.

semantic

幺 yāo

small; thread (right)

Lower-right 幺 mirrors the left thread. The doubled silk under fresh grass is the meaningful core: abundant, twined, here-and-now. From that lush picture 兹 was borrowed into formal documents for 'hereby', as in 兹证明 ('this is to certify').