公吨 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

gōng public

Original meaning: earthen jar

Pictograph of a earthen jar for holding liquid, now written as 瓮. The current meaning "public" is a phonetic loan.

Components

八 Iconic component

bā eight

Depicts handles of a jar.

口 Iconic component

kǒu, kou mouth

Depicts the opening of a jar.

Change in form

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 口 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Sound (5 of 14 verified)

容松讼翁颂瓮蚣衮忪袞頌訟鈆彸

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	kuwng	C.qˤoŋ	impartial, just; public
	kuwng	C.qˤoŋ	father; prince

說文解字

《說文》：“公，平分也。从八、从厶。八，猶背也。韓非曰：‘背厶為公’。”

Sources

Character origin: 季旭昇《說文新證》p.86-87
Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

dūn metric ton Simplified

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 屯 represents the sound. Simplified form of 噸.

Components

口 Meaning component

kǒu, kou mouth

屯 Sound component

tún, zhūn village

Historical Pronunciations

	Old Chinese
Zhengzhang	tʰuːnʔ

Sources

Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Zhengzhang Shangfang

dūn metric ton Traditional

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 頓 represents the sound.

Components

口 Meaning component

kǒu, kou mouth

頓 Sound component

dùn to bow, pause

Sources

Readings & variants: Unicode

公 gōng public

Components

Character Evolution

Component uses

Sound (5 of 14 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

吨 dūn metric ton Simplified

Components

Historical Pronunciations

Sources

噸 dūn metric ton Traditional

Components

Sources

gōng public

dūn metric ton Simplified

dūn metric ton Traditional