斯 (sī): (phonetic transliteration chara…

Meanings

1 (phonetic transliteration character)
2 this (literary)

Characters

斯

sī

phonetic element; this (literary)

Examples

巴黎是法兰西的首都。

Bālí shì Fǎlánxī de shǒudū.

Paris is the capital of France.

俄罗斯是一个大国。

Éluósī shì yígè dàguó.

Russia is a large country.

Tips

usage

斯 is overwhelmingly used as a phonetic character for transliterating foreign names: 俄罗斯 (Russia), 克里斯 (Chris). Its classical meaning 'this' is rarely seen outside literary Chinese.

Components

radical

斤 jīn

axe; catty

Right side is the axe radical, picturing a hafted woodsman's axe used for splitting. The original 'split, separate' meaning has all but vanished from modern 斯, which now lives mainly as a literary 'this' (斯人) and as a transliteration syllable for foreign words (俄罗斯, 斯坦).

phonetic

其 qí

winnowing basket; that one

Left 其 supplies the sound. The qí to sī shift looks large in modern Mandarin but reflects a regular Old Chinese velar/sibilant alternation attested across this phonetic series. 其 originally pictured a woven winnowing basket; neither that image nor its later 'his/hers' meaning is carried into 斯.