肱
gōng

forearm

Originally written as 厷, which depicts a hand with a circular mark on the arm to indicate the forearm. The ⺼ (meat) component was added later to clarify the meaning.

Components

⺼
⺼ Meaning component
ròu meat, flesh

⺼ is a component form of 肉.

厷
厷 SoundIconic component
gōng, hóng forearm

Depicts a hand (𠂇) with a circular mark on the arm to indicate the forearm.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Jin 266-316 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartkwong[k]ʷˤəŋ (upper) arm

說文解字

《說文》：“厷，臂上也。从又，从古文。厶，古文厷，象形。肱，厷或从肉。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫董蓮池《說文解字考正》p.114
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)