牒 (dié): official document; dispatch

Meanings

1 official document; dispatch
2 register; record book
3 genealogy

Characters

牒

dié

official document

Examples

HSK 6

外交官通过通牒提出抗议。

Wàijiāoguān tōngguò tōngdié tíchū kàngyì.

Diplomats lodge protests through formal communications.

HSK 6

将军向敌人发出了最后通牒。

Jiāngjūn xiàng dírén fāchū le zuìhòu tōngdié.

The general delivered an ultimatum to the enemy.

HSK 7-9

寺院保存着唐代僧人的度牒。

Sìyuàn bǎocún zhe Tángdài sēngrén de dùdié.

The temple keeps Tang-dynasty ordination certificates of its monks.

Tips

usage

Live compounds: 通牒 (formal diplomatic note / ultimatum) and especially 最后通牒 ('final ultimatum') - the standard term in news for one state issuing a take-it-or-fight demand to another. Older compounds include 度牒 (monk's ordination certificate, Tang-Qing) and 谱牒 (clan genealogy).

history

Originally a thin wooden writing-slip - slimmer than the 牍. Han-era 'document' senses survive because pre-paper bureaucratic writing was literally inscribed on these strips; an 'ultimatum' was a tablet of writing handed over to the opposing camp. The paper-era compounds preserved the wooden-slip name.

Components

radical

片 piàn

slice; slip of wood

Left 片 (Kangxi #91) - a wooden slip, half of a tree split lengthwise. Before paper, official records were written on these slips; the radical anchors the document family: 牒, 牍, 版 (board / edition).

phonetic

枼 yè

thin leaf / slip

Right 枼 - a tree (木) below a small unit, originally 'thin leaf' - supplies the sound (yè to dié, drift in the same dental series) and a secondary semantic of 'thin slip'. Same phonetic in 蝶 (butterfly), 碟 (small plate), 谍 (spy).