始shǐ

始

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简体

Simplified Chinese

Simplified form (簡體). 始 (shǐ, "to begin") retains its traditional shape — a semantic compound of 女 (woman) and 台 (possibly representing pregnancy or birth), originally capturing the moment of life's beginning. Though not a radical itself, it appears in 始 (obviously) and a few other characters.

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Shuowen

始. It is formed by the woman radical 女 and the phonetic element 司; in oracle bone inscriptions it pictured a woman giving birth, indicating the start of life, which is why the character came to mean “to begin.”

Pinyin

shǐ· HSK 1

始shǐ

Character evolution

Shuowen

Pinyin