Depicts an adult man facing forward and standing erect. The meaning later shifted to "big".
Character Evolution
Component uses
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)
Original meaning: desire to have something
Phonosemantic compound. 柰 represents the sound and 欠 represents the meaning. Based on the original meaning "desire to have something". The meaning later shifted to "funds" and "item".
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Sound (0 of 1 verified)
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | |
|---|---|---|
| Zhengzhang | kʰloːnʔ | |
| Unicode | kuɑn |
說文解字
《說文》：“，意有所欲也。从欠，祟欠省。歀，或从柰。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 李学勤《字源》p.768
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Zhengzhang Shangfang
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)