Shuowen Jiezi | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Traditional Chinese | 說文解字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 说文解字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Literal meaning | Explaining graphs and analyzing characters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Shuowen Jiezi is a Chinese dictionary compiled by Xu Shen c. 100 CE, during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–206 CE). While prefigured by earlier Chinese character reference works like the Erya (c. 3rd century BCE), the Shuowen Jiezi featured the first comprehensive analysis of characters in terms of their structure, and attempted to provide a rationale for their construction. It was also the first to organize its entries into sections according to shared components called radicals.