氐

Composed of:

氏 (clan; family name; lineage) — primary component, itself denoting origin or source;

一 or 丶 (horizontal stroke or dot) — final stroke indicating the base or bottom point, the very ground from which something springs.

氐 is a rare and classical character, seldom appearing in modern everyday writing. It survives mainly in specialized, historical, and astronomical contexts.

氐宿 (저수) — the Root Mansion; the fourth of the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions (二十八宿) in traditional Chinese astronomy, associated with the eastern sky and the Azure Dragon.

The character also appears historically as an ethnonym:

氐 was the name used in classical Chinese sources for the Di people (氐族), an ancient ethnic group of northwestern China active during the Han through the Northern and Southern Dynasties periods.

Related characters:

氏 — clan; lineage; family name (parent form)

本 — root; origin; foundation (common modern equivalent)

基 — base; foundation (structural sense)

元 — origin; primary (abstract sense)

底 — bottom; base (spatial sense)

Classical citations:

《說文解字》 (Shuowen Jiezi, Xu Shen, c. 100 CE)

「氐，至也。下基也。」

"氐 means to reach; it is the lower base."

The earliest lexicographic definition, confirming its meaning as the bottommost point or foundation of a thing.

Note on script variation: in mainland China the final stroke is written as a dot (丶); in all other regional standards (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea) it is written as a horizontal stroke (一).

Same character, two accepted terminal strokes depending on region.

氐 should not be confused with the visually similar 氏 (씨 / shì), which means clan or family name. 氐 adds the bottom stroke to 氏, anchoring it conceptually at the base or foundation.