Original meaning: city wall
In ancient scripts 丁 was written in two different ways: (1) depicting the walls of a city, which is now written as 圍, or (2) depicting a nail, which is now written as 釘.
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | teng | tˤeŋ | 4th heavenly stem |
| teng | tˤeŋ | nail (n.) | |
| treang | tˤreŋ | sound of beating |
說文解字
《說文》：“丁，夏時萬物皆丁實。象形。丁承丙，象人心。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 季旭昇《說文新證》p. 962
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)
Original meaning: raise up children
Phonosemantic compound. 宀 represents the meaning and 子 represents the sound. The 宀 (roof) component is based on the original meaning "raise up children". The meaning later shifted to "educate", "word", and "writing".
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Sound (0 of 1 verified)
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | dziH | mə-dzə(ʔ)-s | breed, love (v.); character |
說文解字
《說文》：“字，乳也。从子在宀下，子亦聲。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 漢語多功能字庫
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)