系 a hand holding two strands of silk

Component 系 a hand holding two strands of silk

系 is a compound ideograph representing a hand holding two strands of silk.  In bronze scripts, it depicts a hand holding three strands of silk. In seal and regular scripts, two strands of silk is changed to one strand and the form of hand 爪 is changed to丿, which means “tie or knot”

The character 系 mainly serves as a semantic component to form other characters.

Characters formed by the semantic component 系

6 7 jì,xì
10 jǐn 10
10 suǒ 10 wěn
10 zhā 11 léi,lèi,lěi
11 zhā 12 jié,xié
12 12 zhí
12 12 tāo
12 juàn 12 lěi
13 shào 13
14 14 qǐ,qìng
14 jǐn 14 fán
15 mián 15 xié
16 téng 16 xiàn
16 pán 16 yíng
17 fán,pó 17
17 yáo,yóu,zhòu 17
17 zhí 17
17 zuǎn 18 ruǐ
18 chuō 19
19 20 zuǎn
21 lèi 21 léi
24 dào

The character 系 also serves as a phonetic component to form few characters.

Characters formed by the phonetic component 系

鲧、喺、虆、銯

See also the Component

You can’t miss out the component too.