Kilo Lingo

(shǐ) - history, historical records in Mandarin

shǐ

Traditional: 史

Line drawing of 史
Coloured illustration of 史
#1581 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

history, historical records

Word origin

An ideograph showing a hand holding a tablet or record, originally depicting the official scribe who kept records, hence the meaning of history.

Origin
ideograph
Root
又 (yòu, hand) holding a record

Stroke order

Stroke order for 史

Examples

This book is about the history of China.

He is very interested in ancient history.

zuò

This city has a very long history.

The teacher asked us to read a book of historical records.

duàn

This is a piece of history that should not be forgotten.

史 (shǐ) means history and, in its older sense, the official who recorded events. It appears most often inside the compound 历史 (lìshǐ) but stands alone in classical and formal usage.

Where this fits

Appears in 1 word

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 史.

Used in

Add to review queue

Track this word in your spaced-repetition queue and be tested on it at the right interval.

Go to my review queue

Mandarin · Free printables

史: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Mandarin word "史" (history, historical records): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

Free for members

The printable worksheets, infographics and PDFs are free with an account. Start a free week and download as many as you like.

Start your free week

This word is part of lesson 32.