弓, a pictographic character of a bow, serves as a semantic component to forms characters. The characters formed by the semantic component have to do with the bow. Continue reading “Component 弓 bow”
Category: Pictograms
Component 刀 Knife
刀, a pictographic character of a knife, serves as a semantic component to form characters. Characters formed by the semantic component 刀 express meanings related to the knife, such as 刮, 剃, 删, 削, 剖, 利, 罚, 别, 辨, 割, etc. 刀 also serves as a phonetic component to form characters such as 叨.
How is 臣 from? It is very lonely in Chinese!
臣 chén, originally meant “male slave”, is a character with very little “siblings” in Chinese characters. Totally, there are only seven characters composed of 臣: Continue reading “How is 臣 from? It is very lonely in Chinese!”
Pictogram of 止 foot, stop
止 came from the image of a foot, and its meaning was extended to “stop, only/just.” Commonly used phrases are 停止 stop and 不止 not only/just
Pictograms of the Chinese zodiac
The twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac