爽
shuǎng HSK6

refreshing, clear, happy

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approved by cochleoid · May 30, 2022, 01:27 AM · Reviewed by Peter Olson on May 31, 2022, 07:31 AM

I'm not sure how to cite sources. There's an etymological explanation in Outlier but I'm not sure if it's fair to paraphrase that. The old pronunciations are from ABC Etymological Dictionary of Chinese.

Changed fields: originalMeaning, components, historicalPronunciations

Original meaning: a matching pair

Depicts a person (大) carrying things (爻) under each arm. Based on the original meaning "match, pair".

Components

大
大 Meaning component
Change in meaning
大 hints at the original meaning of 爽, "a matching pair", which is no longer the most common meaning of 爽 in modern Mandarin.
爻
爻 MeaningRemnant component
Change in meaning
爻 hints at the original meaning of 爽, "a matching pair", which is no longer the most common meaning of 爽 in modern Mandarin.
爻
爻 MeaningRemnant component
Change in meaning
爻 hints at the original meaning of 爽, "a matching pair", which is no longer the most common meaning of 爽 in modern Mandarin.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 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
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

《說文》：“爽，明也。从，从大。，篆文爽。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)