大化县 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

dà, dài big

Depicts an adult man facing forward and standing erect. The meaning later shifted to "big".

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

Meaning (9 of 21 verified)

去太奇套尖奈赤契夸奎奢奕叁奘夯奁夼尜奩奓𢧤 show all 21 show fewer

Iconic (21)

天因美夫央亦乘衡牵熊夹爽奚鬱粦耎夨叕夾椉業 show all 21 show fewer

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)

huà change

Pictograph of a right-side up person (亻) and an upside-down person (𠤎), depicting the meaning "turn around" or "transform".

Components

亻 Iconic component

rén person

亻 is a component form of 人.

𠤎 Iconic component

huà upside-down person

Depicts an upside-down person.

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Sound (4 of 7 verified)

花华货靴讹貨訛

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	xwaeH	qʷʰˤ<r>aj-s	transform

說文解字

《說文》：“化，教行也。从，从人，亦聲。”

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)

xiàn county Simplified

Original meaning: suspend, hang

Simplified form of 縣. Pictograph of a severed head (首) hanging on a rope (系) from a tree (木). Based on the original meaning "hang" or "suspend". The current meaning is a phonetic loan. The traditional component 系 was removed for simplification.

Components

首 Iconic component

shǒu head

Depicts a severed head.

Change in form

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

木 Iconic component

mù tree

Change in form

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

系 Deleted component

xì, xi, jì system

Depicts a rope. The traditional component 系 was removed for simplification.

Component uses

Sound (1)

悬

Iconic (1)

悬

Sources

Character origin: 漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants: Unicode

xiàn county Traditional

Original meaning: suspend, hang

Pictograph of a severed head (首) hanging on a rope (系) from a tree (木). Based on the original meaning "hang" or "suspend", now written as 懸. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.