爾

爾 (radical 89, 爻+10, 14 strokes, cangjie input 一火月大 (MFBK), four-corner 1022₇)

• 尔

• KangXi: page 691, character 4
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 19750
• Dae Jaweon: page 1104, character 3
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 1, page 27, character 1
• Unihan data for U+723E

Historical forms of the character 爾
Shang	Western Zhou	Warring States	Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)
Oracle bone script	Bronze inscriptions	Chu Slip and silk script	Small seal script

Pictogram (象形) – cloth on a loom, with threads crossing. Used phonetically.

“you; your”

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *na-ŋ (“you”).

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

爾

1. (literary or dialectal) you; your

   我無爾詐，爾無我虞。 [Classical Chinese, trad.]
   我无尔诈，尔无我虞。 [Classical Chinese, simp.]

   From: Commentary of Zuo, circa 4^th century BCE

   Wǒ wú ěr zhà, ěr wú wǒ yú. [Pinyin]

   I do not deceive you; You do not deceive me.

2. (literary) so; this way
3. (literary) this; that
4. ^† (of flowers) exuberant

   • 彼爾維何，維常之華。 [Classical Chinese, trad.]
     彼尔维何，维常之华。 [Classical Chinese, simp.]

     From: The Classic of Poetry, circa 11^th – 7^th centuries BCE, translated based on James Legge's version

     Bǐ ěr wéi hé, wéi cháng zhī huā. [Pinyin]

     What is that so gorgeous? It is the flowers of the cherry tree.

5. final particle
6. A surname​.

爾

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

爾

1. (Hokkien) that's all; nothing more; is all

爾

1. (Hokkien) only

(“Jinmeiyō” kanji used for names)

1. you
2. like that, that way

• Go-on: に (ni)
• Kan-on: じ (ji)^{←ぢ (di, historical)}
• Kun: おれ (ore, 爾); しか (shika, 爾); なんじ (nanji, 爾)^{←なんぢ (nandi, historical)}; しかり (shikari); その (sono, 爾の); のみ (nomi, 爾)
• Nanori: あきら (akira); ちか (chika); み (mi); みつる (mitsuru)

From Old Japanese. Found in use mostly from ancient times until roughly the Heian period,[1] used to refer in the second person to social inferiors or to insult.[1][2][3]

The second person sense of you appears to be obsolete in modern Japanese.

Not to be confused with the modern term 俺 (ore) with the first person sense of I, me. See 俺 for that sense.

• Kun’yomi
  • (Tokyo) おれ [òré] (Heiban – [0])[2]
  • IPA^(key): [o̞ɾe̞]

• 儞
• 你

爾 (hiragana おれ, rōmaji ore)

1. (archaic, vulgar) you

Often used to insult. Compare modern Japanese お前 (omae), English you son of a bitch.

/namuti/ → */nandi/ → /nand͡ʑi/

From Old Japanese. Originally derived as a compound of 汝 (na, “you”) +‎ 貴 (muchi, honorific suffix).[1][2][3]

Originally used to refer honorifically to the second person. From around the Nara period, the honorific sense lessened, and the term was used to refer to social equals or occasionally social inferiors. By the Muromachi period, this term was the most common second person pronoun for social inferiors.[1]

• Kun’yomi
  • (Tokyo) な​んじ [náꜜǹjì] (Atamadaka – [1])[2]
  • (Tokyo) なんじ [nàńjí] (Heiban – [0])[2]
  • IPA^(key): [nã̠ɲ̟d͡ʑi]

• 汝 (more common)

爾 (hiragana なんじ, rōmaji nanji)

1. (archaic) thou, you

No longer in use in modern Japanese outside of contexts where the speaker is deliberately invoking archaic usage. Compare use of English thou.

From Old Japanese.[1][2] Compound of し (shi, “that”, demonstrative, likely related to さ (sa), modern そう (sō)) +‎ か (ka, suffix indicating state).[1][3]

The interjection sense appears to have developed from the adverb sense.

• Kun’yomi
  • IPA^(key): [ɕika̠]

• 然 (more common)

爾 (hiragana しか, rōmaji shika)

1. (obsolete) like that, as such
2. (obsolete) certainly, definitely

• 然 (しか)し (shikashi, “be that as it may, however”)

爾 (hiragana しか, rōmaji shika)

1. (obsolete, conversational) yeah, uh-huh

爾 • (i) (hangeul 이, revised i, McCune–Reischauer i, Yale i)

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

爾 (nhãi, nhĩ)

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.