堇
jǐn

clay

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approved by Peter Olson · Oct 12, 2021, 06:15 PM · Reviewed by Peter Olson on Oct 12, 2021, 06:15 PM

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Changed fields: gloss, hint, originalMeaning, isVerified, components, customSources, strokeDataSimp, fragmentsSimp, historicalImages

Original meaning: burn

Pictograph of a person facing upwards with their mouth open over a fire. Based on the original meaning "burn". The meaning later shifted to "bake", "dry out", and "clay".

Components

◎
◎ Iconic component

Depicts a person facing upwards with their mouth open.

火
火 Iconic component
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 火 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartgin[g]rə[r] time, season
kj+nXkə[r]ʔ (a kind of vegetable)
gin[g]rə[r] clay

說文解字

《說文》：“堇，黏土也。从土，从黄省。、皆古文堇。”

Sources

Character origin
李学勤《字源》p.1198
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)