Original meaning: cut
Phonosemantic compound. 歬 represents the sound, and 刂 represents the meaning. Based on the original meaning "cut", now written as 剪. The current meaning "in front" is a phonetic loan.
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | dzen | [dz]ˤen (~ *m-dzˤen) | before |
說文解字
《說文》：“歬，不行而進謂之歬。从止在舟上。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 漢語多功能字庫The Outlier Linguistics Dictionary of Chinese Characters
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)
Pictograph of a man. The top horizontal stroke either distinguishes it from the character 大 or depicts a hairpin, something that was only worn by adults.
Components
一 Distinguishing component
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | pju | p(r)a | man |
| bju | [b]a | this, that | |
| bju | ba | final particle |
說文解字
《說文》：“夫，丈夫也。从大，一以象簪也。周制以八寸為尺，十尺為丈，人長八尺，故曰丈夫。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 漢語多功能字庫林志強《《文源》評注》p.2
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)