Definitions

leather shoes

Etymology phono-semantic

leather

Semantic: Phonetic:

About

(dī) is a phono-semantic compound formed from the semantic radical (gé), meaning leather or animal hide, and the phonetic component (shì). It originally denoted a type of leather shoe, occasionally extended to leather garments or coverings. In classical literature, its core meaning of leather footwear remained primary. The character has become exceedingly rare in modern Chinese, appearing mostly in historical texts or specialized studies of ancient apparel rather than in everyday usage.

Etymology Hide

Seal etymology image
Seal Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical etymology image
Clerical Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
Clerical etymology image
Clerical Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
Traditional Modern
Simplified Modern