贝, 见 and 页

贝, 见 and 页

These three semantic components 贝, 见 and 页 look very familiar but are totally different. Just explore how they are different!




At first glance, 贝, 见 and 页 look quiet similar, but they have different meanings, and so do the characters formed by them.

Differences between the semantic components 贝, 见 and 页

The semantic component 贝

贝, pictogram, denotes shell. As we know, the ancient people used shells as money to trade, so characters composed of the semantic 贝 express meanings related to money, trade, business, deal, wealth, finance, etc, such as:

财 wealth; property

贷 loan; borrow; lend

费 expense; cost; spend

贫 poor

购 purchase; buy

贸 trade

赊 buy or sell on credit

赔 compensate; pay for; stand a loss

账 account; debt

账 account; debt

The semantic component 见

见, a compound ideogram, denotes see, look, watch, etc. Characters composed of 见 express meanings related to view, admire, feel, see, watch, look, present, etc. such as:

观 observe; look at; watch

觅 look for; hunt for; seek

视 look at; regard; inspect

览 take a look at; read; see; view

现 appear, present,

窥 peep; spy

觇 observe; survey

觊 attempt; hope; long for

觐 present oneself before (a monarch)

The semantic component 页

页,a pictogram, denotes head. Characters composed of 页 express meanings realted to certain part of the head, movement of the head, etc or figurative meanings related to the head, such as:

额 forhead

顶 top

领 neck; collar

颅 cranium; skull

颊 cheek

颜 face

项 nape; sum; term; section

颈 neck

顾 look around

颓 declining; decadent; dilapidated; ruined

贝 and 见 can also serve as phonetic components to form chracters.

Examples of characaters formed by the phonetic component :  呗 bei, 钡 bèi, 狈 bèi, 坝 bà, 败 bài

Examples of characaters formed by the phonetic component 见:

枧 jiǎn、笕 jiǎn、靓 liàng、蚬 xiǎn、岘 xiàn、苋 xiàn

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