稽

jī

examine, investigate; delay

Meaning

  • Verification and Audit: To examine or check against a standard or record. In administrative or legal contexts, this implies formal verification rather than simple observation.
  • Temporal Lag: To delay, linger, or be slow; ranges from passive lagging to active procrastination or stalling.
  • Ritual Submission: Specifically in the compound 稽首, meaning to bow so deeply that the forehead touches the ground (kowtowing).

Grammar and usage

  • Transitive: Used when investigating an object of inquiry or intentionally delaying a process.
  • Intransitive: Used when a matter is delayed or someone lingers.

History and forms

  • Tang-period readings: gei, kěi.
  • Variant: U+25874 (Z-variant).

Decontextualized translator aid. This page describes plausible lexical range; it does not choose what the glyph means in a particular passage.