<p>The discussion on zdict basically explains that the Oracle bone script morphed (讹变) into its current form, but this transformation did not follow standard rules.</p>
<p>The original Oracle bone script shows a man riding a horse, which means &quot;to ride&quot; (i.e. what 骑 means today), but when small seal script was developed, the horse morphed into 可, which violates the usual practice of keeping the meanings the same. The character also acquired the meanings of &quot;unusual&quot; or &quot;strange&quot;:</p>
<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/pl5gD.png" alt="enter image description here" /></p>
<blockquote>
<p>甲骨文“奇”字，人骑在马上，小篆“奇”字“马”讹变为“可”（“字源字形”栏目），本义跨坐、骑坐，“骑”本字，借为①特殊的、不常见的：奇怪、奇异、稀奇，②出人意料的、令人不测的：奇兵、奇计、出奇制胜，又借为：</p>
<p>◎ jī 单数、与“偶数”相对：奇数、奇偶、奇函数。</p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-03T14:25:49.687Z
Thanks for the explanation. I still don't see how "to ride" and "unusual" have any related meaning. I don't really see the horse or the man in the ancient symbol (when compared to other symbols I've seen before).
Tommie C.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-03T23:05:42.210Z
@TommieC. thanks, I misread that part. The text says that the "unusual" meaning came later.
congusbongus
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-08-27T19:54:57.150Z
@TommieC. A lot of the characters changed their meanings as time passes. When it did, people would create another character with the same pronunciation to replace the original one. In this case, they created "騎" to mean "to ride" since a new meaning was added to "奇".
LulalaBoss
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-08-27T19:56:23.550Z
@TommieC. Look at the explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification
LulalaBoss
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T07:45:54.130Z
2014-06-03T23:05:13.103Z
2020-06-17T09:50:11.587Z
congusbongus
<p>According to the 漢語大字典, which has a graphic of the character in various scripts, in some earlier versions the top element of 奇 is written as 立 ‘to stand’.  It further cites an early analysis from the "六書故” (liushu being the theory of 6 types of character composition):  </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>“一足立也.  別作踦.”  “奇,古踦字.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Karlgren’s Analytic Dictionary gives 踦 as meaning “one-legged, halt, lame; single.”  In other words, “standing on one foot” is semantically linked to “strange, odd number,” and the character 奇 originally had both meanings.  It’s also easy to see the “man with one leg” in 奇, if you are looking for ways to memorize this character.</p>

<p>Taking a different tack, both Karlgren and some of the early dictionaries state that 可 is also a phonetic element, although the correspondence is inexact.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-07T14:50:49.767Z
Very interesting analysis, I will give this some more thought as I continue to research further.
Tommie C.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T15:10:01.123Z
2014-06-02T15:10:01.123Z
neubau
<p>The "oracle bone form" that the OP posted looks fake, and no paleography titles that I can find seem to support that「奇」was the original character of「騎」or that「可」originally represented a horse, and all say that the character just uses「大」as a semantic component and「可」as a phonetic component. This is believable from their Old Chinese Reconstructions:</p>

<ul>
<li>奇, Baxter-Sagart /*[k](r)aj/</li>
<li>可, Baxter-Sagart /*[k]ʰˤa[j]ʔ/</li>
</ul>

<p>If it came from「馬」, then there should be other examples of「可」morphing into「馬」.</p>

<p><strong>劉釗《古文字構形學》</strong></p>

<blockquote>
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/R43mn.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/R43mn.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
</blockquote>

<p><strong>李學勤《字源》</strong></p>

<blockquote>
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/73Vm4.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/73Vm4.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>The structure of the character itself doesn't tell us too much about why it came to mean "strange".</p>

<p>The Zhongwen.com explanation has over-interpreted the character as a compound ideogram. "A person exhaling in wonder" plausibly interprets「大」as a person and 「可」as "to exhale", and note that「可」is viewed by some paleographers as a very ancient and possibly original character of「歌」, "to sing". However, this compound ideogram theory lacks evidence, as if「奇」indeed depicts a person exhaling in wonder, there would be textual examples of「奇」being used as a verb meaning "to exhale (whether or not <em>in wonder</em>)". The best thing to do is to wait on more evidence to be gathered rather than subject the character to wild interpretations.</p>

<p>See also <a href="http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%A5%87" rel="noreferrer">http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%A5%87</a>.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-15T20:36:21.353Z
2018-01-15T20:49:05.563Z
2018-01-15T20:49:05.563Z
dROOOze
<p>Let me add a few points to congusbongus's very good answer. The most likely explanation is that 奇 originally meant ‘to ride’, but then it was borrowed to represent the word ‘unusual’, which had identical pronunciation. Later, in order to keep the two characters separate, the 馬 ‘horse’ radical was added to the character for ‘to ride’. This is the way the etymology of many characters is explained by Chen Zhiqun in her very interesting dissertation, <a href="http://arrow.monash.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/monash:34651/THESIS01" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><strong><em>Compound ideograph: a contested category in studies of the Chinese writing system</em></strong></a> (for a summary of Chen's main points, you can take a look at chapter 2 of my thesis: <a href="http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/michalkk/WhyAreChineseCharactersSoDamnHard.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Why are Chinese characters so damn hard?</em></a>)</p>

<p>So, in short, the character 奇 doesn't represent anything related to the meaning ‘unusual’. There are many cases of such phonetic loans. Consider 花. It means ‘flower’, that's why it has the grass radical. But it may also mean ‘to spend’. There is nothing in the components 花 that is related to the meaning ‘to spend’. The only relation is that the Mandarin word for ‘to spend’ is pronounced identically to the Mandarin word for ‘flower’, <em>huā</em>.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-30T16:31:26.927Z
2016-12-03T13:39:55.703Z
2016-12-03T13:39:55.703Z
米好 '-'
<p>I'm just learning Chinese, and by no means an expert. However, I did pick up a copy of Kalgren's dictionary and I have been using the internet to research the meanings behind characters to help me remember. I started with the very first one: 阿。 What is interesting about your question and my search to understand 阿, is that I found a similarity in the oracle bones. In the case of 阿, the left character is a simplified version of mound/large mound/continent. and the right is 可 which, the wiktionary gives (see picture below) the root characters it derived from. Notice the Etymology 1 description. It means to carry, lower back, perhaps kidney. Personally, I think it looks more like a stick with a bag on it like a drifter would carry around in cartoons. What is interesting to me is that in 阿, it is paired with the mound character and it is always used to describe a family member or a relationship. So, I think it means a relationship with ancestors (our ancestors moved to this land/we carry on of our ancestors/ancestral land). In addition, my oxford dictionary lists 阿飞 as a hooligan, and hooligans can be a little strange/crazy. The pictures you have shown look very similar to the oracle script for the carrying bag, and I can't help but make the connection that perhaps the word strange is trying to describe a crazy person/drifter (one who travels around with no home and is kind of nuts). <a href="https://i.sstatic.net/B7Pfh.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/B7Pfh.png" alt="Picture of chinese scripts for 阿。"></a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-07T06:13:56.173Z
2020-04-07T06:22:04.223Z
2020-04-07T06:22:04.223Z
user25030
<p>All the literature citation is found here ：<a href="http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/5947.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/5947.htm</a>.</p>

<p>For your information, usage of a glyph went through many years of evolution. 
The original usage pf (奇 Ji) as number  derive from I-ching, differentiate the number Ying(feminine, even number, divided by "pair" ) and Yang(Man, Odd, cannot be divided perfectly )  . 一者，奇也(The number "One", is special)。陽奇而隂偶 (yang is odd, and ying is even)</p>

<p>In fact, one is a special (odd/strange) number for most cultures when they start develop mathematics. For unknown reason, the early writer of I-ching successfully derive a binary multiplication from the number one. 
As we know today, any number power of 0, is 1 . And I-ching binary 
i.e.</p>

<pre><code>2^0 = 1 
2^1 = 2
2^2 = 4

# conventional math
10^0 = 1
11^0 = 1
55^0 = 1 , etc
# guess what happens when zero power of zero ? 
0^0 = 1 
</code></pre>

<p>Due to its special attributes, 1 is also known as 奇 , but only in I-ching.  In modern mandarin, it is no longer mean one, but odd number. </p>

<p>（update) 
I just found a reference of the <a href="http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=1466" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ancient 奇 glyph</a>.  </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-13T21:04:08.513Z
Looks like meaning "1" is backed by “一足立也. 別作踦.” “奇,古踦字.” which is "to stand on ONE leg". And look at the picture in the middle of the OP post. Clearly there is a man balancing on one foot!!!
coobit
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-13T21:06:23.640Z
So your comment and neubau's comment are a match too good to be brushed off as a coincidence. But that does 骑 - "riding a horse" got to do with "standing on one leg"?
coobit
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-13T21:09:29.503Z
Indeed standing on one leg is "strange". Who would do this? Not an ancient literate man :)
coobit
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-15T17:44:22.007Z
@coobit  In ancient China, horse riding is strange to the people. As horses is not some "simple" transportation animals compare to mule.
mootmoot
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-15T19:55:22.173Z
This is valid only if that character was invented right after chinese tamed the horse. I have no idea when this taming took place, but it should have been looooooooong time ago more than the age of this character.
coobit
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-16T07:35:40.283Z
@coobit  Bare in mind that, it is expensive to rear a riding horse.
mootmoot
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-11-14T14:09:52.150Z
2018-01-15T17:33:30.067Z
2018-01-15T17:33:30.067Z
mootmoot
<p>You have to take some of the old non-scientific etymology sources (like Shuowen) with a grain of salt sometimes, and certainly of forum sources.</p>

<p>It's not credible to me, for example, that the 可 in 奇 could have been simplified from 馬. This is simply <em>not possible</em>. It's also not credible to me that 奇 derived its pronunciation from 可. So what is plausible?</p>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/XP9Dg.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/XP9Dg.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

<p>Absent an Oracle Bone character that matches 奇, we don't really have direct evidence for the origins of the Small Seal 奇. Everything is going to be a guess. However, the Oracle Bone character you provide here (if it indeed existed <sup>1</sup>): 大 (man figure) + 丁 (some bar), but no 口 (mouth), <em>would</em> come close to being a plausible precursor. It turns out, a well placed 口 at this stage of character development was almost always a phonetic loan marker. So the Small Seal character 奇 is possibly a re-analysis of an (unattested) Oracle Bone character 奇 = (大 + 丁) + 口 that is a phonetic loan of whatever the Oracle Bone character 大 + 丁 is.</p>

<p>Whether the meaning of 奇 is etymologically related at all to the true meaning of 大 + 丁 is unclear. I'm leaning towards no, simply because the first character creator of 奇, by finding it necessary to use 口, didn't consider such a relationship discernible. But various un-etymological meanings could still have been back-endowed onto the pictorial atom 大 + 丁, variously:</p>

<ul>
<li>大 + 丁: stand on one leg, unstable</li>
<li>大 + 丁: stride across</li>
</ul>

<p>By the time it becomes 奇, with readings we can reconstruct, the following meanings were also evidently acquired:</p>

<ul>
<li>奇 [krjaj]: not paired, as in odd number</li>
<li>奇 [grjaj]: unusual, rare</li>
</ul>

<p>The references do tell us with some certainty that 奇 was the original character for "mount a horse," so that gives further:</p>

<ul>
<li>奇 [grjaj]: mount a horse</li>
</ul>

<p>Some say this comes from the "surprising" appearance of mounted cavalry, given that horses were a late import, but more likely it's just a homophone.</p>

<p>There were evidently many other such suggestive loans, created at various times, and 奇 definitely acquired more and more meanings. The rest of the story seems clearer: Radicals were added to distinguish between the various homophones like:</p>

<ul>
<li>骑 [grjaj]: mount a horse</li>
<li>倚 [ʔrjajʔ]: lean upon</li>
<li>琦 [grjaj]: fine jade</li>
<li>畸 [krjaj]: misshapen field</li>
<li>崎 [grjaj]: jagged mountain</li>
<li>觭 [khrjaj]: tilted horns</li>
</ul>

<p>etc. That the abstract meanings of "odd" (both "not paired" and "unusual") retained the non-radicalized 奇 is also consistent with common practice.</p>

<p><sup>1</sup> As another answer points out, this is a "fake" in that it did not come from a serious academic source. A source says it is found unattributed in the book 《汉字密码》 ("The secret code of Chinese characters") by the "alternative theory" author 唐汉. It's not clear if the entire character is made up, or it is simply given a made up semantic explanation. The answer assumes the character itself (or one substantially like it) is found somewhere in the Oracle Bone corpus, and proceeds from there.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-26T04:47:15.813Z
How did you get 丁 from that form? 丁 depicts city walls and was a close homograph to 囗.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-26T04:50:48.213Z
@droooze I didn't get 丁 literally. I'm just using it to stand in for whatever turned into the analogous part of 可. It clearly has no relationship to 丁.
Nimrod
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-25T08:14:28.257Z
2018-07-25T09:43:29.737Z
2018-07-25T09:43:29.737Z
Nimrod
<p><strong>Lost Glyph Origin</strong></p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/mgSlL.gif" alt="ji-zdict.net"></p>

<p>奇 ( jī | qí  ) is a character that means <em>strange</em> but the glyph origin appears to have been lost. At least as far as I can tell after researching offline books, zhongwen.com, and zdict.net ( qí ). The character is composed of (dà) 大 and (kě) 可 but none of my references can explain why the meaning is "odd" (numerically) or "strange" (as in unusual).</p>

<p>This is just one of the characters that seem to have lost it's history. I know that I could just accept it's meaning and memorise it but I really appreciate the storied history behind each character as a method to discern meaning. Can someone share information on the etymology of the character 奇?</p>

<p>I am also interested in how I should deal with discrepancies between Chinese and Chinese-English dictionaries in general (see below for an example). Often, I note that the Chinese dictionary has more information (whose implications I am missing) than Chinese-English dictionaries (is there a better method than just using a source like www.zhongwen.com)?</p>

<p><strong>Dictionary</strong> </p>

<p>While researching this character I noticed that the Chinese dictionaries have much richer information available than the Chinese-English sources.</p>

<p>e.g.</p>

<pre><code>奇 jī
①形单的；不成双的（跟“偶”相对）。
奇偶 | 奇数
②名〈文〉数目的零头。
身长六尺有奇 | 奇零
另见 qí。
奇 qí
①形特殊；稀罕。
奇形怪状 | 奇观 | 奇特
②形出人意料的；不同寻常的。
奇遇 | 奇计
③动惊异。
不足为奇 | 惊奇
④副特别；非常。
奇冷 | 奇痒难忍
⑤名姓。
用法说明读 qí，基本义是特殊、稀罕；读 jī，与数目有关，指单数或不成双的。
另见 jī。
</code></pre>

<p>(Simplified Chinese Dictionary)</p>

<p>a lot of which is quite hard to decipher and contrasted with my Simplified Chinese English Dictionary below:</p>

<pre><code>奇 jī
A.形容词
odd
→ 奇偶, 奇数
B.名词
书面语remainder
六十有奇
sixty odd
→ qí
奇 qí
A.形容词
①（罕见）unusual
奇男子/女子
remarkable man/woman
奇松怪石
unique pine trees and strangely-shaped rocks
→ 奇耻大辱, 奇迹, 奇妙
②（出人意料）unexpected
→ 奇兵, 奇袭, 奇遇, 出奇制胜
B.动词
surprise
→ 不足为奇, 惊奇
C.副词
extremely
奇丑
very ugly
奇痒
be terribly itchy
→ 奇缺
→ jī
</code></pre>

<p><strong>Hints</strong></p>

<p>Zhongwen.com hints that this may just be a person exhaling in wonder (to imply strange??) but is that a stretch?</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/N7Qvn.gif" alt="ji-zhongwen.com"></p>

<p><strong>ChineseEtymology.com</strong></p>

<p>Chinese Etymology seems to have very little information on this character (<a href="http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;characterInput=%E5%A5%87" rel="noreferrer">Source</a>)</p>

<p><strong>User Discussion</strong></p>

<p>Zdict.net has a user forum (<a href="http://www.zdic.net/z/17/wy/5947.htm" rel="noreferrer">here</a>) in which this character is discussed but I am afraid that I may have missed the gist of the conversation. So any help would be appreciated. The following reference image was shared in a post by user if that is any help. I am unsure of the original source and whether or not this is a composite.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/XP9Dg.jpg" alt="user-discussion">
Zdict.net </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-05T01:44:14.883Z
re "discrepancies between dictionaries" — I've often wondered about this too; you should post that as a separate question!
alxndr
<characters><etymology><glyph-origin>
What is the glyph origin of '奇'?
# What is the glyph origin of '奇'?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-06-02)

**Lost Glyph Origin**

![ji-zdict.net](https://i.sstatic.net/mgSlL.gif)

奇 ( jī | qí ) is a character that means *strange* but the glyph origin appears to have been lost. At least as far as I can tell after researching offline books, zhongwen.com, and zdict.net ( qí ). The character is composed of (dà) 大 and (kě) 可 but none of my references can explain why the meaning is "odd" (numerically) or "strange" (as in unusual).

This is just one of the characters that seem to have lost it's history. I know that I could just accept it's meaning and memorise it but I really appreciate the storied history behind each character as a method to discern meaning. Can someone share information on the etymology of the character 奇?

I am also interested in how I should deal with discrepancies between Chinese and Chinese-English dictionaries in general (see below for an example). Often, I note that the Chinese dictionary has more information (whose implications I am missing) than Chinese-English dictionaries (is there a better method than just using a source like www.zhongwen.com)?

**Dictionary**

While researching this character I noticed that the Chinese dictionaries have much richer information available than the Chinese-English sources.

e.g.

```
奇 jī
①形单的；不成双的（跟“偶”相对）。
奇偶 | 奇数
②名〈文〉数目的零头。
身长六尺有奇 | 奇零
另见 qí。
奇 qí
①形特殊；稀罕。
奇形怪状 | 奇观 | 奇特
②形出人意料的；不同寻常的。
奇遇 | 奇计
③动惊异。
不足为奇 | 惊奇
④副特别；非常。
奇冷 | 奇痒难忍
⑤名姓。
用法说明读 qí，基本义是特殊、稀罕；读 jī，与数目有关，指单数或不成双的。
另见 jī。

```

(Simplified Chinese Dictionary)

a lot of which is quite hard to decipher and contrasted with my Simplified Chinese English Dictionary below:

```
奇 jī
A.形容词
odd
→ 奇偶, 奇数
B.名词
书面语remainder
六十有奇
sixty odd
→ qí
奇 qí
A.形容词
①（罕见）unusual
奇男子/女子
remarkable man/woman
奇松怪石
unique pine trees and strangely-shaped rocks
→ 奇耻大辱, 奇迹, 奇妙
②（出人意料）unexpected
→ 奇兵, 奇袭, 奇遇, 出奇制胜
B.动词
surprise
→ 不足为奇, 惊奇
C.副词
extremely
奇丑
very ugly
奇痒
be terribly itchy
→ 奇缺
→ jī

```

**Hints**

Zhongwen.com hints that this may just be a person exhaling in wonder (to imply strange??) but is that a stretch?

![ji-zhongwen.com](https://i.sstatic.net/N7Qvn.gif)

**ChineseEtymology.com**

Chinese Etymology seems to have very little information on this character ([Source](http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&characterInput=%E5%A5%87))

**User Discussion**

Zdict.net has a user forum ([here](http://www.zdic.net/z/17/wy/5947.htm)) in which this character is discussed but I am afraid that I may have missed the gist of the conversation. So any help would be appreciated. The following reference image was shared in a post by user if that is any help. I am unsure of the original source and whether or not this is a composite.

![user-discussion](https://i.sstatic.net/XP9Dg.jpg)
Zdict.net

**Tags:** characters, etymology, glyph-origin

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: re "discrepancies between dictionaries" — I've often wondered about this too; you should post that as a separate question!  

---

## 7 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2014-06-02. Score: 11

The discussion on zdict basically explains that the Oracle bone script morphed (讹变) into its current form, but this transformation did not follow standard rules.

The original Oracle bone script shows a man riding a horse, which means "to ride" (i.e. what 骑 means today), but when small seal script was developed, the horse morphed into 可, which violates the usual practice of keeping the meanings the same. The character also acquired the meanings of "unusual" or "strange":

![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/pl5gD.png)

> 甲骨文“奇”字，人骑在马上，小篆“奇”字“马”讹变为“可”（“字源字形”栏目），本义跨坐、骑坐，“骑”本字，借为①特殊的、不常见的：奇怪、奇异、稀奇，②出人意料的、令人不测的：奇兵、奇计、出奇制胜，又借为：
>
> ◎ jī 单数、与“偶数”相对：奇数、奇偶、奇函数。

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks for the explanation. I still don't see how "to ride" and "unusual" have any related meaning. I don't really see the horse or the man in the ancient symbol (when compared to other symbols I've seen before).  
> **username_2**: @TommieC. thanks, I misread that part. The text says that the "unusual" meaning came later.  
> **username_3**: @TommieC. A lot of the characters changed their meanings as time passes. When it did, people would create another character with the same pronunciation to replace the original one. In this case, they created "騎" to mean "to ride" since a new meaning was added to "奇".  
> **username_3**: @TommieC. Look at the explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2014-06-02. Score: 8

According to the 漢語大字典, which has a graphic of the character in various scripts, in some earlier versions the top element of 奇 is written as 立 ‘to stand’. It further cites an early analysis from the "六書故” (liushu being the theory of 6 types of character composition):

> “一足立也. 別作踦.” “奇,古踦字.”

Karlgren’s Analytic Dictionary gives 踦 as meaning “one-legged, halt, lame; single.” In other words, “standing on one foot” is semantically linked to “strange, odd number,” and the character 奇 originally had both meanings. It’s also easy to see the “man with one leg” in 奇, if you are looking for ways to memorize this character.

Taking a different tack, both Karlgren and some of the early dictionaries state that 可 is also a phonetic element, although the correspondence is inexact.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Very interesting analysis, I will give this some more thought as I continue to research further.  

---

### Answer by username_5 on 2018-01-15. Score: 6

The "oracle bone form" that the OP posted looks fake, and no paleography titles that I can find seem to support that「奇」was the original character of「騎」or that「可」originally represented a horse, and all say that the character just uses「大」as a semantic component and「可」as a phonetic component. This is believable from their Old Chinese Reconstructions:

* 奇, Baxter-Sagart /\*[k](r)aj/
* 可, Baxter-Sagart /\*[k]ʰˤa[j]ʔ/

If it came from「馬」, then there should be other examples of「可」morphing into「馬」.

**劉釗《古文字構形學》**

> [![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/R43mn.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/R43mn.png)

**李學勤《字源》**

> [![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/73Vm4.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/73Vm4.png)

The structure of the character itself doesn't tell us too much about why it came to mean "strange".

The Zhongwen.com explanation has over-interpreted the character as a compound ideogram. "A person exhaling in wonder" plausibly interprets「大」as a person and 「可」as "to exhale", and note that「可」is viewed by some paleographers as a very ancient and possibly original character of「歌」, "to sing". However, this compound ideogram theory lacks evidence, as if「奇」indeed depicts a person exhaling in wonder, there would be textual examples of「奇」being used as a verb meaning "to exhale (whether or not *in wonder*)". The best thing to do is to wait on more evidence to be gathered rather than subject the character to wild interpretations.

See also <http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%A5%87>.


---

### Answer by username_6 on 2016-10-30. Score: 2

Let me add a few points to username_2's very good answer. The most likely explanation is that 奇 originally meant ‘to ride’, but then it was borrowed to represent the word ‘unusual’, which had identical pronunciation. Later, in order to keep the two characters separate, the 馬 ‘horse’ radical was added to the character for ‘to ride’. This is the way the etymology of many characters is explained by Chen Zhiqun in her very interesting dissertation, [***Compound ideograph: a contested category in studies of the Chinese writing system***](http://arrow.monash.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/monash:34651/THESIS01) (for a summary of Chen's main points, you can take a look at chapter 2 of my thesis: [*Why are Chinese characters so damn hard?*](http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/michalkk/WhyAreChineseCharactersSoDamnHard.pdf))

So, in short, the character 奇 doesn't represent anything related to the meaning ‘unusual’. There are many cases of such phonetic loans. Consider 花. It means ‘flower’, that's why it has the grass radical. But it may also mean ‘to spend’. There is nothing in the components 花 that is related to the meaning ‘to spend’. The only relation is that the Mandarin word for ‘to spend’ is pronounced identically to the Mandarin word for ‘flower’, *huā*.


---

### Answer by username_7 on 2020-04-07. Score: 1

I'm just learning Chinese, and by no means an expert. However, I did pick up a copy of Kalgren's dictionary and I have been using the internet to research the meanings behind characters to help me remember. I started with the very first one: 阿。 What is interesting about your question and my search to understand 阿, is that I found a similarity in the oracle bones. In the case of 阿, the left character is a simplified version of mound/large mound/continent. and the right is 可 which, the wiktionary gives (see picture below) the root characters it derived from. Notice the Etymology 1 description. It means to carry, lower back, perhaps kidney. Personally, I think it looks more like a stick with a bag on it like a drifter would carry around in cartoons. What is interesting to me is that in 阿, it is paired with the mound character and it is always used to describe a family member or a relationship. So, I think it means a relationship with ancestors (our ancestors moved to this land/we carry on of our ancestors/ancestral land). In addition, my oxford dictionary lists 阿飞 as a hooligan, and hooligans can be a little strange/crazy. The pictures you have shown look very similar to the oracle script for the carrying bag, and I can't help but make the connection that perhaps the word strange is trying to describe a crazy person/drifter (one who travels around with no home and is kind of nuts). [![Picture of chinese scripts for 阿。](https://i.sstatic.net/B7Pfh.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/B7Pfh.png)


---

### Answer by username_8 on 2016-11-14. Score: 1

All the literature citation is found here ：<http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/5947.htm>.

For your information, usage of a glyph went through many years of evolution.
The original usage pf (奇 Ji) as number derive from I-ching, differentiate the number Ying(feminine, even number, divided by "pair" ) and Yang(Man, Odd, cannot be divided perfectly ) . 一者，奇也(The number "One", is special)。陽奇而隂偶 (yang is odd, and ying is even)

In fact, one is a special (odd/strange) number for most cultures when they start develop mathematics. For unknown reason, the early writer of I-ching successfully derive a binary multiplication from the number one.
As we know today, any number power of 0, is 1 . And I-ching binary
i.e.

```
2^0 = 1 
2^1 = 2
2^2 = 4

# conventional math
10^0 = 1
11^0 = 1
55^0 = 1 , etc
# guess what happens when zero power of zero ? 
0^0 = 1 

```

Due to its special attributes, 1 is also known as 奇 , but only in I-ching. In modern mandarin, it is no longer mean one, but odd number.

（update)
I just found a reference of the [ancient 奇 glyph](http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=1466).

> **Comments:**
> **username_9**: Looks like meaning "1" is backed by “一足立也. 別作踦.” “奇,古踦字.” which is "to stand on ONE leg". And look at the picture in the middle of the OP post. Clearly there is a man balancing on one foot!!!  
> **username_9**: So your comment and username_4's comment are a match too good to be brushed off as a coincidence. But that does 骑 - "riding a horse" got to do with "standing on one leg"?  
> **username_9**: Indeed standing on one leg is "strange". Who would do this? Not an ancient literate man :)  
> **username_8**: @username_9  In ancient China, horse riding is strange to the people. As horses is not some "simple" transportation animals compare to mule.  
> **username_9**: This is valid only if that character was invented right after chinese tamed the horse. I have no idea when this taming took place, but it should have been looooooooong time ago more than the age of this character.  
> **username_8**: @username_9  Bare in mind that, it is expensive to rear a riding horse.  

---

### Answer by username_10 on 2018-07-25. Score: 1

You have to take some of the old non-scientific etymology sources (like Shuowen) with a grain of salt sometimes, and certainly of forum sources.

It's not credible to me, for example, that the 可 in 奇 could have been simplified from 馬. This is simply *not possible*. It's also not credible to me that 奇 derived its pronunciation from 可. So what is plausible?

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/XP9Dg.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/XP9Dg.jpg)

Absent an Oracle Bone character that matches 奇, we don't really have direct evidence for the origins of the Small Seal 奇. Everything is going to be a guess. However, the Oracle Bone character you provide here (if it indeed existed 1): 大 (man figure) + 丁 (some bar), but no 口 (mouth), *would* come close to being a plausible precursor. It turns out, a well placed 口 at this stage of character development was almost always a phonetic loan marker. So the Small Seal character 奇 is possibly a re-analysis of an (unattested) Oracle Bone character 奇 = (大 + 丁) + 口 that is a phonetic loan of whatever the Oracle Bone character 大 + 丁 is.

Whether the meaning of 奇 is etymologically related at all to the true meaning of 大 + 丁 is unclear. I'm leaning towards no, simply because the first character creator of 奇, by finding it necessary to use 口, didn't consider such a relationship discernible. But various un-etymological meanings could still have been back-endowed onto the pictorial atom 大 + 丁, variously:

* 大 + 丁: stand on one leg, unstable
* 大 + 丁: stride across

By the time it becomes 奇, with readings we can reconstruct, the following meanings were also evidently acquired:

* 奇 [krjaj]: not paired, as in odd number
* 奇 [grjaj]: unusual, rare

The references do tell us with some certainty that 奇 was the original character for "mount a horse," so that gives further:

* 奇 [grjaj]: mount a horse

Some say this comes from the "surprising" appearance of mounted cavalry, given that horses were a late import, but more likely it's just a homophone.

There were evidently many other such suggestive loans, created at various times, and 奇 definitely acquired more and more meanings. The rest of the story seems clearer: Radicals were added to distinguish between the various homophones like:

* 骑 [grjaj]: mount a horse
* 倚 [ʔrjajʔ]: lean upon
* 琦 [grjaj]: fine jade
* 畸 [krjaj]: misshapen field
* 崎 [grjaj]: jagged mountain
* 觭 [khrjaj]: tilted horns

etc. That the abstract meanings of "odd" (both "not paired" and "unusual") retained the non-radicalized 奇 is also consistent with common practice.

1 As another answer points out, this is a "fake" in that it did not come from a serious academic source. A source says it is found unattributed in the book 《汉字密码》 ("The secret code of Chinese characters") by the "alternative theory" author 唐汉. It's not clear if the entire character is made up, or it is simply given a made up semantic explanation. The answer assumes the character itself (or one substantially like it) is found somewhere in the Oracle Bone corpus, and proceeds from there.

> **Comments:**
> **username_5**: How did you get 丁 from that form? 丁 depicts city walls and was a close homograph to 囗.  
> **username_10**: @username_5 I didn't get 丁 literally. I'm just using it to stand in for whatever turned into the analogous part of 可. It clearly has no relationship to 丁.  

---

