性
xìng HSK3

nature

Phonosemantic compound. 忄 represents the meaning and 生 represents the sound.

Components

忄
忄 Meaning component
xin, xīn heart

忄 is a component form of 心.

生
生 Sound component
shēng, sheng life

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 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-SagartsjengHseŋ-s nature

說文解字

《說文》：“性，人之陽气性善者也。从心，生聲。”

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)