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Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC 
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC 
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC 
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC 
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC 
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC 
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC 
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC 
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC 
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD 
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC 
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD 
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD 
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD Regular Modern
big
Review: Meaning was most likely a semantic expansion.
Changed fields: hint
Depicts an adult man facing forward and standing erect. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Character Evolution
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | daH | lˤat-s (MC F!) | big |
| dajH | lˤa[t]-s | big |
說文解字
《說文》：“大，天大、地大、人亦大，故大象人形。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 季旭昇《說文新證》p.764
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)