pronoun #56,871

Meanings

  1. 1 what?; why?; where? (literary)

Examples

Wèicǐ yuǎnxíng, xī bì rúcǐ?
Why bother going so far for this?
Háizi men bùtíng de xīluò tā.
The children kept taunting him.

Tips

usage
As a question word ('what / why / where') is purely classical, like . In modern Chinese you mostly meet it in 奚落 (to taunt; to ridicule).
culture
Capitalized, is also a surname and the name of the Xi, a Mongolic people of medieval north China. The character originally pictured a hand holding a roped captive, hence its old meaning of 'slave'.

Components

radical
big; a person
The at the bottom is a front-facing person, the captive being held. It is also the Kangxi radical the character is filed under.
semantic
zhǎo
claw; grasping hand
The clawing-hand on top is a grasping hand; in the original picture it held the rope that bound a captive, the source of the old 'slave' sense.
semantic
yāo
tiny; thread
The small in the middle stands for the cord or rope binding the figure below, twisted thread drawn small.

Stroke Order