夌
líng

to surpass, to ascend

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approved by cochleoid · Mar 5, 2025, 01:44 PM · Reviewed by cochleoid on Mar 5, 2025, 01:44 PM

Basically paraphrased 《說文新證》rather than trust 漢語多功能字庫's interpretation of it being a man climbing a tree. I don't know how this was "to dawdle" before. Made me confuse it with 夋 in my flashcards. This has components identified but no etymology or role for the components.

Changed fields: gloss, hint, isVerified, components, customSources

Unclear origin. In oracle bone script, the top portion appeared to come from 屮, while the bottom appeared to come from 人. Some versions add 止 below 人 while others add 仌.

Components

屮
屮 RemnantUnknown component
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 屮 than it was in ancient scripts.
人
人 RemnantUnknown component
夂
夂 Unknown component

夂 is a component form of 止. In Warring States Chu script, this was 土. Versions that added the 仌 phonetic here perhaps should be identified as 凌.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartling[r]əŋ mound, hill

說文解字

《說文》：“夌，越也。从夂，从；，高也。一曰夌屖也。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.467
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)