Depicts an adult man facing forward and standing erect. The meaning later shifted to "big".
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | daH | lˤat-s (MC F!) | big |
| dajH | lˤa[t]-s | big |
說文解字
《說文》：“大，天大、地大、人亦大，故大象人形。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 季旭昇《說文新證》p.764
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)
Simplified
Original meaning: turn
Depicts a hand (寸) spinning a wheel (叀). Based on the original meaning "turn", now written as 轉. The current meaning is a phonetic loan. The simplified character 专 was adapted from the cursive form of the traditional character 專.
Components
叀 IconicSimplified component
寸 IconicSimplified component
Depicts a hand.
Traditional
Original meaning: turn
Depicts a hand (寸) spinning a wheel (叀). Based on the original meaning "turn", now written as 轉. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | tsywen | ton | exclusively |
說文解字
《說文》：“專，六寸簿也。从寸，叀聲。一曰專，紡專。”
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)