騎

騎 (Kangxi radical 187, 馬+8, 18 strokes, cangjie input 尸火大一口 (SFKMR), four-corner 7432₁, composition ⿰馬奇)

• 骑

• 𫬷, 𮊠

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 1440, character 36
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 44817
• Dae Jaweon: page 1964, character 31
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 7, page 4560, character 8
• Unihan data for U+9A0E

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 / 形声, OC *ɡral, *ɡrals): semantic 馬 (“horse”) + phonetic 奇 (OC *kral, *ɡral) – to ride horseback

Wanderwort in the E/SE Asian Sprachbund. The STEDT reconstructs Proto-Sino-Tibetan *gi (“to ride; to sit astride; to sit (horse)”), and comments that "many of the TB forms seem to be borrowings from Chinese 騎".

Outside Sino-Tibetan, cognates are also found in Hmong-Mien, Tai-Kadai and some Mon-Khmer languages. Benedict (1975) surmises that this is an ancient loan into Proto-Sino-Tibetan from Austro-Tai:

... but these [Tibeto-Burman] forms appear to involve old loans from AT [Austro-Tai] with typical loss of an original medial *w (Thai *khwi ~ *gwi).

while Peiros (1998), Sagart (2006), Schuessler (2007) (who suggests that 騎 (OC gai, “to ride”) is possibly endopassive "let oneself be carried (on the back of an animal)" of 荷 (OC gâiʔ, “to carry”)) and Pittayaporn (2014) think the directionality of borrowing is reversed. The following excerpt is taken from Sagart's review (2006) of Matisoff's book Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman (2003):

The collection of forms under Matisoff's high-vowelled *gyi 'ride' are from TB languages in contact with Chinese (Lolo-Burmese, Qiangic, Tujia): they are best regarded as late loans from Chinese. ... The idea that the Chinese vocabulary of agriculture, metallurgy, horse-riding etc. might contain numerous loans from an early SEA language is simply not to be taken seriously in view of modern Asian archaeology (Bellwood 1997), quite apart from the fact that it makes no linguistic sense (Sagart 1999 for metal names). Yet Matisoff's book is scattered with observations telling the reader that words like 'writing brush' and 'ride' just discussed may well be loans from Austro-Tai into ST (188; 504).

Below lists some cognates for "to ride" found in various languages in this Sprachbund.

• Lolo-Burmese: *gyi ~ dzyi: Burmese စီး (ci:), Nuosu ꋩ (zzy, “to ride; to bear (a rider)”), ꊪ (zy, “to cause to ride”)
• Southwestern Tai: *kʰwiːᴮ: Thai ขี่ (kìi), Lao ຂີ່ (khī), Zhuang gwih
• Hmong-Mien: *ɟej: White Hmong caij
• Mon-Khmer: West Bahnaric *ɟih, Khmer ជិះ (cih), Vietnamese cưỡi

Also compare Proto-Austronesian *sakay (“catch a ride, join a group, ride on something”).

Pronunciation 2 is a Late Old Chinese general purpose derivation from Pronunciation 1 (Schuessler, 2007).

騎

1. to ride (a horse, bicycle, etc.)
2. to sit astride
3. (vulgar) to ride; to mount (someone in sex)

騎

1. horse or vehicle that one rides on
2. mounted soldier
3. (literary) Classifier for soldiers or warhorses.
4. a surname

• “騎”, in 教育部臺灣台語常用詞辭典 [Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwanese Taigi] (overall work in Mandarin and Hokkien), Ministry of Education, R.O.C., 2025.
• “騎”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎^[1], 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–
• 李如龙 [Li, Ru-long], 刘福铸 [Liu, Fu-zhu], 吴华英 [Wu, Hua-ying], 黄国城 [Huang, Guo-cheng] (2019) “骑”, in 莆仙方言调查报告 [Investigation Report on Puxian Dialect] (overall work in Mandarin and Puxian Min), Xiamen University Press, →ISBN, page 160.
• 莆田市荔城区档案馆 [Putian City Licheng District Archives], editor (2022), “骑”, in 莆仙方言文读字汇 [Puxian Dialect Literary Reading Dictionary] (overall work in Mandarin and Puxian Min), page 182.

(Jōyō kanji)

1. ride horseback
2. mount
3. cavalry

• Go-on: ぎ (gi)
• Kan-on: き (ki, Jōyō)
• Kun: のる (noru, 騎る)

From Middle Chinese 騎 (MC gje|gjeH). Already used phonetically in Old Japanese to spell unvoiced ki, as in the place name 阿騎・安騎 (Aki, a former hunting ground in Nara).^[1]

Attested as a counter in the early 1200s, and as a standalone noun in the late 1800s.^[2]

• IPA^(key): [kʲi]

騎(き) • (ki) 

1. riding on horseback
2. a horseperson

騎(き) • (-ki) 

1. [early 1200s] horseperson

騎(き) • (ki) 

1. riding on horseback
2. [1877] (rare) a horseperson

騎 (eumhun 말을 탈 기 (mareul tal gi))

1. hanja form^? of 기 (“to ride (a horse)”)

騎: Hán Nôm readings: kị, kỵ, cưỡi, cỡi

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