The development of Shuowen Jiezi is as follows:

Shuowen Jiezi was the first Chinese character radical, which responded to the requirements of the times for the unification and standardization of the Chinese characters, and according to the principle of "Fang yi ci gathers, things are divided into groups, the same leads to the article, the *** reasoning is coherent, miscellaneous, but not transgressive, according to the shape of the linkage. In accordance with the principle of "the square is gathered by the class, the things are divided by the group, the same leads to the article, the *** reason is coherent, miscellaneous but not transgressing, according to the shape is connected", the character shape is the outline, the training is established according to the shape, and the same shape in the Chinese character is taken as the benchmark of classification.

Arranged in 540 radicals, starting from the "I" radical and ending at the "Hai" radical, the first character in the same radical is the radical and is labeled with the phrase "All genera of a certain character are derived from a certain one". The first character from the same radical is the radical and is labeled with the phrase All the characters from the same radical are listed together, so that the original characters can be discussed and the main points can be explained in detail, which is intended to reveal the inner rules of the words and the system of the meaning of the words.

Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字), or Shuowen for short, is a language tool compiled by Xu Shen, a scribe and litterateur of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and is the earliest language dictionary in China that systematically analyzes Chinese characters' glyphs and their origins, and one of the earliest dictionaries in the world, and has been hailed as the "world's first kind of book".

The original Shuowen Jiezi was written in the twelfth year of Emperor Yongyuan's reign in the Han Dynasty (100 years), and in the third year of the Northern Song Dynasty (986 years) it was collated and circulated in engraved editions, and many of the later generations have studied Shuowen using this edition as a blueprint. Content *** fifteen volumes, the first fourteen volumes for the text of the explanation, the fifteenth volume for the narrative; structured according to the head of the organization, *** divided into 540 heads of department, the collection of 9353 words.

Shuowen Jiezi, as the earliest dictionary in China, established a theoretical system for Chinese characters, pioneered the dictionary of radicals, and had a far-reaching influence on later generations. It is the founding work of scientific philology and documentary linguistics.

There have been many scholars who have studied the Shuowen Jiezi throughout the ages, and the research was most flourishing during the Qing Dynasty. Duan Yucai, Zhu Junsheng, Guifu, and Wang Yun's commentary is particularly respected, and the four were honored as the "Four Greats of Shuowen".