性行为 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

xìng, xing nature

Phonosemantic compound. 忄 represents the meaning and 生 represents the sound.

Components

忄 Meaning component

xin, xīn heart

忄 is a component form of 心.

生 Sound component

shēng, sheng life

Character Evolution

Bronze form — Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC

Clerical form — Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	sjengH	seŋ-s	nature

說文解字

《說文》：“性，人之陽气性善者也。从心，生聲。”

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)

xíng, háng walk

Depicts a street intersection.

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	hang	[g]ˤaŋ	rank, row
	haeng	Cə.[g]ˤraŋ	walk (v.)
	haengH	[g]ˤraŋ-s	action

說文解字

《說文》：“行，人之步趨也。从彳，从亍。”

Sources

Character origin: 季旭昇《說文新證》p.138
Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

wèi, wéi do Simplified

Simplified form of 為. Pictograph of a hand (又) guiding an elephant (象) to do work (in ancient China elephants were tamed to do work). Based on the meaning "to work; to do".

Components

又 Iconic component

yòu hand

Change in form

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

象 Iconic Simplified component

xiàng elephant

Component uses

Sound (0 of 2 verified)

伪沩

Sources

Character origin: 季旭昇《說文新證》p.194
Readings & variants: Unicode

wèi, wéi do Traditional

Originally written as 爲, which depicts a hand (又) guiding an elephant (象) to do work (in ancient China elephants were tamed to do work). Based on the meaning "to work; to do".