• to be slow, sluggish;
  • to be late, delayed;

Etymology

Phono-semantic compound:

辵 (착, “to walk slowly”) — semantic, related to walking and movement.

犀 (seo, “rhinoceros”) — phonetic, providing the sound.

Graphically, the character shows the “movement radical” 辵 combined with 犀 to suggest both motion and the idea of heaviness/slowness.

Usage in Korean

지체 (遲滯) — delay, stagnation

지연 (遲延) — postponement, delay

지각 (遲刻) — being late (to school, work, etc.)

만지각 (晩遲刻) — arriving late

Still fairly common in academic, legal, and formal contexts.

Words that derived from

Additional notes

Related forms: 遲 is often interchanged historically with 遟.

Alternative forms

Old form is 遟 (U+905F).

더딜/늦을
지, 치
deodil/neuj-eul
ji, chi
Kangxi radical:162, + 12
Strokes:16
Unicode:U+9072
Cangjie input:
  • 卜尸卜手 (YSYQ)
Composition:
  • ⿺ 辶 犀

Neighboring characters in the dictionary

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