Original meaning: grain
Phonosemantic compound. 禾 represents the meaning and 厶 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "grain". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Components
Character Evolution
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | sij | [s]əj | private |
說文解字
《說文》：“私，禾也。从禾，厶聲。北道名禾主人曰私主人。”
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)
Originally a small line or dot below a longer line, indicating "down". The vertical line was added to distinguish the character from 二 (two). Opposite of 上.
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | haeX | gˤraʔ | down |
| haeH | m-gˤraʔ-s | descend |
說文解字
《說文》：“丅，底也。指事。下，篆文丅。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 季旭昇《說文新證》p.47
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)