Depicts a flagpole. There is a circle in the middle marking the center of the flagpole. In older forms of the character, the flagpole has streamers at the top and bottom used to show the direction of the wind.
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | trjuwng | truŋ | center |
| trjuwngH | truŋ-s | hit the center |
說文解字
《說文》：“中，內也。从口、丨，上下通。，古文中。，籀文中。”
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)
Original meaning: divide
Depicts a knife (刂) cutting a gem into two halves (玨), based on the original meaning "to divide". The meaning later shifted to "division", "group", and "team".
Components
Character Evolution
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | paen | pˤ<r>an | divide, distribute |
說文解字
《說文》：“班，分瑞玉。从玨，从刀。”
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)