歬
qián

go forward

Original meaning: washing feet

Original form of 前. Depicts feet (止) being washed in a basin (凡). The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

止
止 Iconic component
zhǐ (foot), stop

Depicts a foot.

凡
凡 Iconic component
fán all

Depicts a basin. Modern form is unrelated to 舟.

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

Character Evolution

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

Component uses

Sound (1)

前

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangzleːn

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
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)