Pictograph of a person with ornamental headwear resembling sheep horns.
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | mijX | [m]rəjʔ | beautiful |
說文解字
《說文》：“美，甘也。从羊，从大。”
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)
Simplified
Traditional
Original meaning: measure weight
Phonosemantic compound. 禾 represents the meaning and 爯 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "measure weight". The meaning later shifted to "lift", "raise", "praise", "reputation", and "call".
Components
Character Evolution
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | tsyhing | tʰəŋ | weigh; evaluate; call |
| tsyhingH | mə-tʰəŋ-s | steelyard |
說文解字
《說文》：“稱，銓也。从禾，爯聲。春分而禾生，日夏至晷景可度，禾有秒，秋分而秒定。律數十二，秒而當一分，十分而寸。其以為重，十二粟為一分，十二分為一銖。故諸程品皆从禾。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 漢語多功能字庫Wiktionary
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)