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Meanings

CC-CEDICT

  1. 1.non-Han people, esp. to the East of China
  2. 2.barbarians
  3. 3.to wipe out
  4. 4.to exterminate
  5. 5.to tear down
  6. 6.to raze

CC-CEDICT · CC BY-SA

Wiktionary

  1. 1.ancient tribes in China
  2. 2.barbarian; foreigners; non-Han people
  3. 3.to treat as barbarian; to consider as Yi
  4. 4.flat; level; smooth; plain
  5. 5.peaceful; tranquil; safe
  6. 6.calm; placid; gentle (of disposition)
  7. 7.ordinary; common; usual
  8. 8.to make level; to equalize; to even out
  9. 9.to cut grass; to mow; to weed
  10. 10.to level (to the ground); to raze; to demolish
  11. 11.to eradicate; to exterminate; to annihilate
  12. 12.to suppress; to quell; to pacify
  13. 13.to close; to seal (gates, passes)
  14. 14.to reduce; to lower; to demote
  15. 15.to decline; to wane; to decay
  16. 16.an ancient hoe-like tool for weeding and leveling ground
  17. 17.to lay out; to arrange (specifically of a corpse); later written as 侇 (yí)
  18. 18.happy; pleased; joyful; later written as 恞 (yí)
  19. 19.to injure; to harm; later written as 痍 (yí)
  20. 20.constant; regular; normal; interchangeable with 彝 (yí)

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Etymology

Originally ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 矢 (“arrow”) + 弓 (“rope”); the original meaning was "to shoot" (arrows) according to Chen Bingxin (陳秉新). Later forms ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 大 (“person; big”) + 弓 (“bow”). According to Yuè Juè Shū (越絕書), 夷 (OC *lil) is also the Yue word for "sea" (1). Therefore, Schuessler (2007) proposes an Austroasiatic origin; compare Proto-Mon-Khmer *d(n)liʔ (“large river, sea”) (whence Khmer ទន្លេ (tɔɔtŭənlei, “large river”) and Kuy [script needed] (thlèː, “sea”)). Meanwhile, Schuessler associates similar Hmong forms like Chuanqiandian Cluster Miao tl̥e (“river”) (< Proto-Hmong-Mien *gle) to *溪 (OC *kʰeː) "creek, rivulet, rill" instead. In contrast, Ferlus (2009) reconstructs 夷's Old Chinese pronunciation as [lɨ] and connects 夷 to Proto-Kra-Dai *k-ri: (“Kra-Dai endonym”) (whence Thai ไท (tai, “"Tai endonym"”) and Hlai Hlai (“"Hlai endonym"”)). However, Ferlus concedes that such a derivation of 夷 from *k-ri: "remains speculative, … not as firmly established as for Hlai and Tai/Thai".

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Stroke order

Components

Components from cjk-decomp · MIT

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Synonyms

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Derived terms

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

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