尚书
Shàng​shūshàng​shū

Book of History

尚 shàng, shang esteem

Original meaning: high place

Depicts a large room. Based on the original meaning "high place". The meaning later shifted to "esteem".

Components

八
八 Distinguishing component
bā eight
冂
冂 SoundIconic component
jiōng, jiǒng large room

Depicts a large room.

口
口 Distinguishing component
kǒu, kou mouth

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Spring and Autumn ~700 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Warring States ~300 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (14 of 24 verified)

当常党掌堂赏躺尝倘趟棠敞裳淌绱徜惝黨耥賞䠀牚嘗當

Simplified (1)

当

Remnant (1)

当

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartdzyangH[d]aŋ-s upwards
dzyangH[d]aŋ-s still, yet

說文解字

《說文》：“尚，曾也，庶幾也。从八，向聲。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.81-82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)

书 shū book Simplified

Simplified form of 書. Phonosemantic compound. 聿 represents the meaning and 者 represents the sound. The simplified character 书 is derived from the cursive form of 書.

Components

聿
聿 MeaningSimplified component
yù writing brush
者
者 SoundSimplified component
zhě one who...
Change in sound

Sources

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

書 shū book Traditional

Phonosemantic compound. 聿 represents the meaning and 者 represents the sound.

Components

聿
聿 Meaning component
yù writing brush
者
者 Sound component
zhě one who...
Change in sound
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 者 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Spring and Autumn 771-476 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartsyos-ta write

說文解字

《說文》：“書，箸也。从聿，者聲。”

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)