Sinograph Addenda · Signs

士officer · shì · officer, man of service; scholar

officer

Where it comes from

The identification is honestly debated: an axe blade set upright is the strongest modern reading; the Shuowen instead parses “one who serves, from one 一one · yī · one; whole, unified through ten 十ten · shí · ten; complete.” Whatever the picture, the word is clear — the lowest rung of the old nobility, the man-at-arms, remade by the philosophers into the scholar who serves with his learning. Taught in the verbless-sentence chapter.

How to remember it

Wide bar on top, narrow stance below — the exact opposite of 土earth · tǔ · earth, soil; the ground earth, whose wide line is the bottom one. The officer stands shoulders first; the earth sits base first.

In the wild