白沙乡 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

bái, bai white

Origin unclear. Possibly depicts a thumb or a person's face.

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

Sound (8 of 15 verified)

百怕伯迫拍帕柏泊舶魄珀帛粕铂樂

Meaning (2 of 13 verified)

的珀皓皖皑皋皙皎皤皅皦皒皚

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	baek	bˤrak	white

說文解字

《說文》：“白，西方色也。陰用事，物色白。从入合二。二，陰數。，古文白。”

Sources

Character origin: 季旭昇《說文新證》p.625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)

shā sand

Phonosemantic compound. 氵 represents the meaning and 少 represents the sound.

Components

氵 Meaning component

shui, shuǐ water

氵 is a component form of 水.

少 Sound Iconic component

shǎo, shao, shào few

少 depicts four small grains of sand.

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Sound (0 of 8 verified)

莎鲨娑裟挲痧桫鯊

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	srae	sˤraj	sand

說文解字

《說文》：“沙，水石也。从水，从少，水少沙見。楚東有沙水。譚長說，沙，或从尐。”

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)

xiāng hometown Simplified

Simplified form of 鄉. Pictograph of two people facing each other, kneeling down to share a meal. Based on the original meaning "feast" or "offer food", now written as 饗. The meaning later shifted to "hometown". The right two components were removed for simplification.

Components

卩 Iconic component

jié person kneeling

Depicts a kneeling person facing right.

Change in form

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

飠 Deleted component

eat

卩 Deleted component

jié person kneeling

Depicts a kneeling person facing left.

Component uses

Sound (1 of 2 verified)

飨芗

Simplified (0 of 1 verified)

芗

Sources

Readings & variants: Unicode

xiāng hometown Traditional

Original meaning: feast, offer food

Pictograph of two people facing each other, kneeling down to share a meal. Based on the original meaning "feast" or "offer food", now written as 饗. The meaning later shifted to "hometown".