省城
shěng​chéng

provincial capital

省 shěng save

Original meaning: eye disease

Phonosemantic compound. 目 represents the meaning and 生 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "eye disease", now written as 眚. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

生
生 Sound component
shēng, sheng life

The original sound component 生 was corrupted to look like 少 in the modern form.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 生 than it was in ancient scripts.
目
目 Meaning component
mù eye

Character Evolution

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 Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartsjengX[s]eŋʔ inspect

說文解字

《說文》：“省，視也。从眉省，从屮。，古文从少，从囧。”

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)

城 chéng city

Phonosemantic compound. 土 represents the meaning and 成 represents the sound.

Components

土
土 Meaning component
tǔ earth
成
成 Sound component
chéng, cheng completed

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Spring and Autumn 771-476 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartdzyeng[d]eŋ city wall

說文解字

《說文》：“城，以盛民也。从土，从成，成亦聲。，籀文城从。”

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)