者

acts almost entirely as a phonetic marker · Character component

acts almost entirely as a phonetic marker, giving characters a sound in the zhu / du / shu / zhe family

The oldest forms of 者 show a bushy plant or a scatter of small dots above a mouth-or-vessel shape, and the picture has never been securely identified — the original graph is unclear, though the link with 煮 'to boil' suggests something being cooked or burned. In the modern form you can still see the two parts: a top that looks like 老 with its bottom stroke replaced by a slanting 丿, over 日 below. In almost every character here 者 is doing sound work rather than meaning work, which is why 猪, 诸, 煮, 堵, 睹, 赌, 暑, 署 and 都 all cluster around the same syllable shape, while a separate meaning element (the dog, the speech, the fire, the earth, the eye, the shell, the sun, the city) carries the sense.

者 at a glance

Meaning

acts almost entirely as a phonetic marker

Strokes

8

Characters

26

Role

Contributes sound

Characters with 者 (22 of 26)

Frequently asked questions