斗, a pictographic character of a wine ladle, serves as a semantic as well as a phonetic component to form characters. Continue reading “斗 a wine ladle”
Category: Decode Characters
午 a pestle
午, a pictographic character resembling a pestle for grinding rice, now represented by 杵, serves as a phonetic component. Continue reading “午 a pestle”
冬 the end of a year
In bone and bronze inscriptions, 冬 resembles the two ends of a knotted rope, indicating that the winter is the end of a year. 冬 is cognate of 终. Later the meaning of 冬 is extended to “winter”. 冬 serves as a phonetic component to form characters. Continue reading “冬 the end of a year”
米 rice
米, a pictographic character of rice, serves as a semantic component to express meanings related to rice, grain, food, etc, e.g. 类/類, 粒, 糟, 粕, 糕, 粳, 粉, 粮/糧 and so forth. 米 also serves as a phonetic component to form characters. Continue reading “米 rice”
豆 a food container
豆, originally a food container, serves as a semantic component to express meanings related to food container or bean. 豆 also serves as a phonetic component to form characters. Continue reading “豆 a food container”