秀林乡 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

xiù elegant, excellent

Depicts a grain seedling (禾) pulled out (引) of the ground. The meaning later expanded to "bloom", "blossom", "elegant", and "excellent".

Components

禾 Iconic component

hé grain stalk

引 Iconic Remnant component

yǐn to pull

Modern form looks like 乃.

Change in form

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

Character Evolution

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Sound (1 of 7 verified)

透诱绣锈莠誘銹

Meaning (0 of 2 verified)

诱誘

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	sjuwH	[s-l]u(ʔ)-s	to flower

說文解字

《說文》：“秀，上諱。”

Sources

Character origin: 李学勤《字源》p.632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)

lín forest

Combination of two trees (木).

Components

木 Iconic component

mù tree

木 Iconic component

mù tree

Character Evolution

Bronze form — Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	lim	[r]əm	forest

說文解字

《說文》：“林，平土有叢木曰林。从二木。”

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".