The Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字), compiled by Xu Shen (徐慎), was completed in the twelfth year of the reign of Emperor He Di of the Eastern Han Dynasty (100 CE), and contains 9,353 characters, making it China's first dictionary organized according to the pattern of radicals. The explanation of each character begins with the meaning, ends with the form, and ends with the sound. The six books (i.e., Xiangshu, Xianyi, Huiyi, Shaping, Zhuyin, and False Borrowing) are used to explain the shape of the characters. Pictograms: A method of creating characters based on the image of an object. For example, "日" means a round sun, and "月" means a moon with its upper strings. Han. Xu Shen. Shuowen Jiezi preface: "two said that the pictogram, pictograms, painted into its object, with the body stuttering, the sun and the moon is also." Referring to things: because there is no specific image, so the symbolic symbols to indicate the meaning of the word-making method. Such as up, down. Han. Xu Shen. Shuo Wen Jie Zi Preface: "The finger thing, see and recognizable, and see the meaning." Also known as "象事" and "處事". Huiyi: A word formation method that combines two or more words to represent a single meaning. For example, the sun and the moon are bright, and the word of a person is a letter. Han. Xu Shen. Shuo Wen Jie Zi (说文解字序)："Huiyi" refers to the combination of two or more characters to represent a single meaning. This is also known as "wu xin" (武信). It is also called "Xiangyi". Form and Sound: A combination of phonetic symbols and phonetic symbols, with the phonetic symbols representing the form and the phonetic symbols representing the sound. For example, the words "river" and "river" are derived from the meaning of water, and their sounds are labeled by the words "work" and "can". Han. Xu Shen. Shuowen Jiezi preface: "the shape of the sound, the thing for the name, take the analogies. That is to say, it is mainly based on things, and then take its sound combination. It is also known as "harmonic sound" and "pictorial sound". Transcription: Derived from one form, it has the same sound and meaning, so it can be transcribed. For example, the words "kao" and "Lao". Han. Xu Shen. Shuo Wen Jie Zi preface: "five said to turn note, turn note, build a class a, agreed to accept each other, kao old is also." False borrowing: some words in the language have sound without character shape, and borrow the same sound to express .... Such as "order" this is the meaning of the number, borrowed for the order of the county magistrate; "long" this is the meaning of the long term, borrowed for the governor of the long. Han. Xu Shen. Shuo Wen Jie Zi preface: "six said false borrowing, false borrowing, there is no word, according to the sound of the matter, so long is also.

"Shuowen Jiezi" is an ancient dictionary

The interpretation of the words in it is completely different from the modern interpretation.

It can be used as a dictionary

The Shuowen Jiezi is an ancient dictionary.