什 (shí): ten (used in fractions, on chec…

Meanings

1 ten (used in fractions, on checks, in formal documents)
2 assorted; miscellaneous
3 transliteration syllable for foreign names

Characters

什

shí

ten (used in fractions, on checks, in formal documents)

Examples

HSK 4

美国总统布什访问了中国。

Měiguó zǒngtǒng Bùshí fǎngwèn le Zhōngguó.

U.S. President Bush visited China.

HSK 7-9

这家店卖什锦饼干。

Zhè jiā diàn mài shíjǐn bǐnggān.

This shop sells assorted biscuits.

HSK 7-9

喀什在新疆西南部。

Kāshí zài Xīnjiāng xīnánbù.

Kashgar is in southwestern Xinjiang.

Tips

usage

The shí reading splits into three live uses: (1) formal "ten" - variant of 十 kept on checks and in legal text to prevent forgery; (2) "assorted" in 什锦; (3) by far the most common today - a transliteration syllable for foreign sh-sounds: 布什 (Bush), 纳什 (Nash), 喀什 (Kashgar), 塔什干 (Tashkent), 什叶 (Shia).

register

In 家什 (household utensils) the shí weakens to neutral tone shi. This is the only common toneless reading of 什; everywhere else it stays full shí.

Components

radical

亻 rén

person (left-side form of 人)

Person radical preserves the original sense: a 什 was a Han-dynasty military unit of ten soldiers and later a household register grouping ten families. "Ten people" became the abstract "ten" and the looser "assorted/miscellaneous" (a mixed group of ten things).

phonetic

十 shí

ten

Right side 十 gives both the sound shí and the meaning "ten" directly - an unusually transparent phono-semantic pair where phonetic and semantic align. This is the etymologically primary reading of 什; the interrogative shén branched off later in colloquial speech.