眞 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

zhēn

real

Original meaning: precious

Variant form of 真. Based on the original meaning "precious", now written as 珍. The meaning later shifted to "genuine" and "true".

Components

𠂈 Sound component

diān, tiǎn to fall forwards

Based on an ancient variant of 殄.

Change in sound

眞 and 𠂈 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
眞 ʔljin
𠂈 *[d]ˤə[n]ʔ

貝 Meaning component

bèi sea shell

In ancient China, shells were considered precious and were used as currency.

丁 Sound component

dīng cubes

Change in sound

眞 and 丁 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
眞 ʔljin
丁 *tˤeŋ

Change in form

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

Regular Modern

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	Old Chinese
Zhengzhang	ʔljin

《說文》：“真，僊人變形而登天也。从，从目，从。八，所乘載也。，古文真。”