朕
zhèn

pronoun 'I'

Original meaning: seal up gaps of a boat

Originally written as 灷. Depicts two hands holding an object (灷) to patch up a gap in a boat (舟), representing the meaning "seal up gaps of a boat". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

舟
舟 Iconic component
zhōu boat

Depicts a boat. Modern form looks like unrelated 月.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 舟 than it was in ancient scripts.
灷
灷 SoundIconic component
zhuàn seal up gaps of a boat

Depicts two hands (廾) holding an object (丨) to patch up a gap in a boat.


Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Spring and Autumn ~700 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Spring and Autumn ~700 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Spring and Autumn ~700 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 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 Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Jin 266-316 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (6)

腾滕媵騰謄勝

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartdrimXlrəmʔ I, we, our

說文解字

《說文》：“朕，我也。闕。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫季旭昇《說文新證》p.685
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)