析 xī to split wood
How it came to be
A tree with an axe beside it, the blade turned to the trunk. It is splitting along the grain, not felling: taking one thing apart into its parts, which is what analysis is.
用法
- A purely bound morpheme in modern Chinese - it never appears alone, only inside 分析 fēnxī (to analyze) and the more formal 解析 jiěxī (to analyze/parse in a technical sense).
- 分析 is the everyday word you'll use constantly: 分析一下情况 fēnxī yíxià qíngkuàng, "let's analyze the situation".
- Don't try to use 析 by itself - unlike many bound characters it has essentially no other productive compounds at this level.