Character: 斯
Modern (Beijing) reading: sī
Preclassic Old Chinese: se
Classic Old Chinese: se
Western Han Chinese: se
Eastern Han Chinese: sje
Early Postclassic Chinese: sje
Middle Postclassic Chinese: sje
Late Postclassic Chinese: sje
Middle Chinese: sje
English meaning : a near demonstrative: this, he, she, it, they
Shuowen gloss: 析也.從斤.其聲.詩曰.斧以斯之. [717]
Comments: The basic meaning of the character is 'to lop off' (thus in Shi 141,1), but it is much more commonly used for the homonymous pronoun *se 'this'; later also for *se-s, MC sjè, Pek. sì 'completely'. OC *se is also rather frequently used as a prosodic syllable or word extender (see Schüssler 577-8). Shuowen's considering 其 *gǝ as phonetic is quite erroneous.
Radical: 0
Four-angle index: 0
Karlgren code: 0869 a-b
Shijing occurrences: 5.1, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3
