480531170

690
L3
検
KEN
investigate
12 strokes
KENTŌenquiry
TANKENexploration
KENSAINinspector
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen); traditional
Has 73 ‘wood, tree’, and (CO, originally,
‘many people agree’) as phonetic with associat-
691
限
GEN, kagiru/ri
limit(ed)
L3
9 strokes
GENDOlimit
GENKAIboundary
kagirinaiboundless
Bronze seal . Has 1907 ‘hill, mound’
and (281, originally ‘hostility, turn and stare’
[bronze form has ‘eye’ with ‘person turned
ed sense ‘store away’ (Tōdō says ‘collect together/collect
and control’: see 500), to give ‘store in
wooden boxes’. Katō and Yamada take ‘examine’
as a loan usage, while Tōdō and Ogawa treat it
as an extended sense. KJ1970:376; YK1976:159;
TA1965:842-6; OT1968:510. As in 689, we again
suggest taking as ‘odd’ elder brother 114
under cover/cap 亼 .
Mnemonic: ODD ELDER BROTHER DONS CAP
TO INVESTIGATE TREE
away’]) as phonetic with associated sense
‘difficult’, to give ‘walking along hilly road is
difficult’. By extension, ‘cannot move on’, ‘dead
end’, ‘limit’. KJ1970:386, 410-11; YK1976:163;
MS1995:v2:1392-4. We suggest taking literally
as eye over twisted legs, turning round.
(Distinguish from 628 ‘good’.)
Mnemonic: LIMITED BY HILLS, SO TURNING
TO LOOK AT WAY BACK
692
L3
現
GEN, arawareru/su
appear, display
11 strokes
HATSUGENrevelation
GENSHŌphenomenon
GENJITSUreality
Seal ; late graph (post-Shuowen). Has 15
‘jade’ in its slightly abbreviated left-hand shape
(minus the dot), and 20 ‘see’. Yamada takes as
phonetic with associated sense ‘appear’, to give
693
減
GEN, heru/rasu
decrease, reduce
L3
12 strokes
GENSHŌdecrease
KAGENextent, state
GENZEItax-cut
‘luster of jade’, with ‘appear’ as a loan usage.
‘Luster of jade’ is supported by Qiu as original
meaning for , who also treats ‘appear’ as a
loan usage for this graph. Ogawa, alternatively,
takes as semantic and phonetic, to give ‘luster
of jade appears’, later generalized to ‘appear
(before one’s eyes)’. YK1976:163-4; OT1968:657;
QX2000:342.
Mnemonic: LOOK AT THE SPOTLESS JADE AP-
PEARING ON DISPLAY
Bronze ; seal . Has 42 water, and
(NJK, see 264, originally ‘threaten with weapon,
shouting’ [Mizukami], or ‘shout’ [Katō]) as
phonetic with associated sense usually taken
as ‘few; diminish’ (Ogawa says ‘sink, collapse’),
to give ‘water diminishes’, then just ‘reduce’.
KJ1970:215,214; OT1968:594; MS1995;V2:764-
6,v1:228-9; YK1976:164.
Mnemonic: THREATEN TO DECREASE WATER
The 185 Fifth Grade Characters 223