酉, a pictographic character of a jar or vase for storing liquors, mainly serves as a semantic component to form characters. The characters formed by the semantic component 酉 express meanings related to liquor, food or things produced by fermentation such as seasoning, condiments, relish, etc, e.g. 醋, 醇, 醉, 醛, 醒, 酌, 配, 酗 and so on.
Continue reading “Compmonent 酉 a jar for storing liquors”
黑 soot in a container over a fire
黑, a compound character of soot in a container over a fire, mainly serves as a semantic component to form characters. Characters formed by the semantic component 黑 mean meanings related to “black” or “dirty” such as 墨, 黔, 點, 黛, 黝, 黜, etc. 黑 also can serve as a phonetic component. Continue reading “黑 soot in a container over a fire”
匚 left box
匚, originally a box, serves as a semantic component to form characters that are related to square containers or other types of containers such as 匣, 匡, 匠,医, 匿, 匾, 匝, 匪, 区, etc. Continue reading “匚 left box”
戈 dagger-axe or halberd
戈, a pictographic character of a dagger-axe or halberd, serves as semantic component to form characters. 戈 mainly appears in ideographs e.g. 戊 戌 我 成 戍 或 伐 戕 戎 戒 戡 截 etc or phono-semantic compounds of left-right structure, e.g. 战, 戡, etc to express things related to weapons, war or killing. Continue reading “戈 dagger-axe or halberd”
斤 an axe
斤 jīn, a pictographic character of an axe, serves as a semantic component to form characters. Characters formed by the semantic component 斤 have to do with axe-alike tools or something related to the use of such tools, e.g. 斥, 斧, 斩, 断, 斯, 斫, 新, etc. Continue reading “斤 an axe”