Skip to content
Inkstone
Sign in

zāi

Meanings

CC-CEDICT

zāi
  1. 1.steroid nucleus

CC-CEDICT · CC BY-SA

Wiktionary

  1. 1.Original form of 淄 (zī, “Zi River, a river in Shandong province”).
  2. 2.An ancient placename.
  3. 3.(biochemistry) steroid

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Etymology

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ʔsrɯ): phonetic 𠙹 + semantic 田 (“cropfield”), attested since Qin State of Warring States period. Evolved later into various different shapes – ⿱𠀐田, 𱰭, and 甾 (Chen, 2021). The "container" sense was of a different character – 𠙹 – attested since oracle bones script. This sense was conflated with 甾 later, as in Middle Chinese rime books (ibid.) See the entry 𠙹 for more. This character was practically obsolete before it was revived as a modern translation for steroid. It is also a pictogram (象形) in this sense; the upper part represents the three side chains on the ring system, and the 田 component represents the tetracyclic core of steroids. See the image on right.

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Stroke order

Components

Components from cjk-decomp · MIT

More examples & usage (AI)

Derived terms

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Related words