乐, originally a pictographic character of a wooden musical instrument, serves as a phonetic component to form characters. Continue reading “乐 a wooden musical instrument”
Category: Decode Characters
多一句就“够”了 Don’t say more than necessary
This character really makes my day! When I see 够 today and just find that its literal structure just helps to make sense of its meaning. Just look at this sentence: 够了，别说了！Enough, don’t say any more! Continue reading “多一句就“够”了 Don’t say more than necessary”
锥 doesn’t look like the beak of a bird?
金/钅metal and 隹 a bird compose 锥 an awl. An awl 锥 is made of metal 金/钅and it gradually gets thicker from the tip to the end ( like the shape of a bird’s beak ). Continue reading “锥 doesn’t look like the beak of a bird?”
摸 when it gets dark one grope his/her way
The sun sets in the bushes when the night falls. This was the original meaning of 莫. 暮 was created to substitute 莫 for that meaning and the meaning of 莫 was changed to “no/not/none” Continue reading “摸 when it gets dark one grope his/her way”
句 to bend
句 originally meant “bend” and has several different extended meanings. It has two pronunciations jù and gōu. Among all its meanings, the meaning of “sentence” is used most. 句 serves as a phonetic component to form characters. Continue reading “句 to bend”