Original meaning: whip a person
Phonosemantic compound. 亻 represents the meaning and 𠓥 represents the sound. Originally written as 𠓥, which depicted a hand holding a whip with the 丙 component. Based on the original meaning "whip a person", now written as 鞭. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | bjienH | [b]e[n]-s | comfortable; advantageous |
| bjien | [b]e[n] | glib-tongued |
說文解字
《說文》：“便，安也。人有不便，更之。从人、更。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 漢語多功能字庫李学勤 《字源》 p.711The Outlier Linguistics Dictionary of Chinese Characters
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)
Original meaning: quiver, arrow case
Pictograph of an arrow inside a quiver. Based on the original meaning "quiver, arrow case". The meaning later shifted to "case", "box", "envelop" and "letter".
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | hom | Cə-m-kˤ[ə]m | envelop, contain |
說文解字
《說文》：“圅，舌也。象形，舌體。从，亦聲。肣，俗圅从肉、今。”
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)