Original meaning: closed mouth
Depicts a closed mouth. Upside-down 曰. The meaning "now" is a phonetic loan.
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | kim | [k]r[ə]m | now |
說文解字
《說文》：“今，是時也。从亼，从乁。乁，古文及。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 季旭昇《說文新證》p.440
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)
Original meaning: head
Depicts a person (大) with an emphasized head. Based on the original meaning "head". The meaning later shifted to "top", "high", and "sky".
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | then | l̥ˤi[n] | heaven |
| xen | l̥ˤi[n] (W dialect: l̥ˤ- > Hàn-time *xˤ- > MC x-) | heaven |
說文解字
《說文》：“天，顛也。至高无上，从一、大。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 季旭昇《說文新證》p.40-41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)