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)
Original meaning: to iron
Depicts a hand (寸) holding two stones over fire (火) to iron a person's (尸) back as a treatment for a disease. Based on the original meaning "to iron", now written as 熨. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | |
|---|---|---|
| Zhengzhang | quds | |
| qud | ||
| Unicode | qiuə̀i |
說文解字
《說文》：“尉，从上案下也。从、又，持火以尉申繒也。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 林志強《《文源》評注》p.266黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》p.3200
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Zhengzhang Shangfang
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)