How to write qi pinyin: [qì]

Qi is the first-level Chinese character, pronounced qì. This character was first seen in oracle bone inscriptions in the Shang Dynasty, and its ancient shape simulates the appearance of clouds. The original meaning of Qi is the third-state substance that is evenly diffused in nature and the gastrointestinal gas produced by the digestion of food.

Later extended to the original gaseous essence energy of the human body. The original gaseous essence energy of the human body is extended to breathing. Extended from breathing to mental traits, attitude, style; loss of breathing, anger. Also used as a surname.

"Qi (Jian)" is a pictographic character. Oracle bone inscriptions use three horizontal lines to represent clouds. The upper and lower horizontal lines are longer and the middle one is shorter. This is different from the three horizontal lines in oracle bone inscriptions with the character "三". The bronze inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty followed the shape of oracle bone inscriptions. In the Spring and Autumn Period, probably in order to highlight the difference from the character "三", the upper part of the character "Qi" was curved horizontally.

During the Warring States period, the lower part was curved horizontally, and two variants appeared, making the character "qi" into a pictophonetic character with the sound of "da" and "qi" and the sound of "conghuo" and "ji". The characters of the Qin Dynasty basically followed the writing method of "qi" in the characters of the Warring States Period. The form of writing did not change much during the Han Dynasty and later.

The traditional Chinese word "Qi" is a phonetic character. In "Shuowen", the main character of Xiaozhuan is Congmi, which sounds like Qi; in "Shuowen", the first or character of Xiaozhuan is Congmi, which sounds like Qi; the second character is Congshi, which sounds like Qi. The original meaning is to give (food), this meaning is pronounced xì.