戚

qī

noun #35,135

Meanings

1 relative, kin
2 sorrow, grief (literary)
3 Qi (Chinese surname)
4 (archaic) a battle-axe

Characters

戚

qī

relative; sorrow; surname Qi

Examples

亲戚都来参加婚礼。

Qīnqi dōu lái cānjiā hūnlǐ.

All the relatives came to the wedding.

他姓戚。

Tā xìng Qī.

His surname is Qi.

休戚相关。

Xiūqīxiāngguān.

Joys and sorrows are intertwined.

Tips

usage

Most commonly seen as the second character in 亲戚 (qīnqi, 'relatives'). The 'sorrow' meaning survives mainly in fixed phrases like 休戚相关 (joys and sorrows linked) and 哀戚 (āiqī, grieving). As a surname, the most famous bearer is Ming-dynasty general 戚继光 (Qī Jìguāng, 1528-1588), defender of the southeast coast against Japanese pirates.

memory

The character originally pictured a 戈 (dagger-axe) weapon — visible on the right. Sorrow/anguish came from the imagery of being struck by grief like a blade.

Components

radical

戊 wù

battle-axe (5th heavenly stem)

Outer 戊 wraps the character from the top-right — the dagger-axe frame that also gives 戚 its earliest sense of 'a small battle-axe'. The 戈 inside 戊 is the indexing radical, putting 戚 alongside 戒 caution, 战 battle, 我 I.

phonetic

尗 shū

bean-stalk (archaic)

Inner 尗 (an old graph for 'bean plant', the source of modern 叔 uncle) supplies the sound that drifted from shū to qī. The bean-stalk image is opaque today — read it purely as the phonetic core, with the axe-frame outside doing the meaning work.

Stroke Order

戚 qī

戚