Original meaning: chopsticks
Phonosemantic compound. 艹 represents the meaning and 者 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "chopsticks", now written as 箸. The modern meanings are phonetic loans.
Components
Alludes to bamboo chopsticks. 艹 and ⺮ (bamboo) were often used interchangeably with each other because of their visual and semantic similarity.
Character Evolution
Component uses
Sound (0 of 1 verified)
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | trjoH | t<r>ak-s | place (n.); visible |
| drjak | m-t<r>ak | put on clothes; be attached | |
| trjak | t<r>ak | to place |
Sources
- Character origin
- Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
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)