Character 疾

疾 means illness or suffering; compounds can express speed or hatred. Read the whole word. Pinyin writes the Mandarin reading jí in Latin letters with a rising tone; Japanese compounds use シツ (shi-tsu).

Text symbol

What 疾 means

The whole word decides: illness, speed, or hatred. 疾病 and 疾患 concern illness; 疾走 means swift running; 疾恶如仇 means hating evil. The Japanese reading of 疾 in compounds is シツ (shi-tsu).

A 2014 study traces early forms to Shang oracle-bone inscriptions—divination records carved on bone—and describes illness divination and ritual treatment. Early shapes pair a person with 疒 or 矢; the form joining 疒 and 矢 took hold during the Warring States period.

Who writes 疾

Loading…

Don't confuse it with

病

CJK Unified Ideograph-75C5

疾 and 病 both appear in illness vocabulary, but 病 is the general disease term; 疾 also appears in words for speed or hatred, so they are not interchangeable.

Questions people ask

Why does 疾 show as a box on some devices?

Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.