Sinograph Addenda · Signs
by-means-of
| Name | by-means-of |
|---|---|
| Reads | yǐ |
| Means | by means of, using; to take — the instrumental |
| Taught in | 07 · With, by, from, at |
Where it comes from
The third most frequent character in the classical corpus. The old graph’s picture is honestly disputed — one reading sees a person carrying something, another an implement — and the word grammaticalized so early that the classics use it almost purely as a tool-word: 以 X, “by X, using X”. Taught in the coverb chapter.
How to remember it
The person 人 stands at the right; the small tangle at the left is the thing in hand. Whatever it is, the sentence will be done by means of it.
In the wild
urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:002:2a · license: attribution.