480531170

851
L3
胸
KYŌ, mune, munachest,
breast, heart
10 strokes
KYŌBUthorax
munage chest hair
DOKYŌheart, mettle
Seal form i] ; seal form ii] () . Both are late
graphs (Shuowen). The second seal form (ii]) is
given as the main graph, comprising (‘embrace,
envelop’: see 611), and 1215 (originally
‘empty mouth’) as phonetic. is taken as having
852
L1
郷
KYŌ, GŌ
village, rural
11 strokes
BŌKYŌhomesickness
GŌSHI squire
KYŌDOlocal
OBI ; seal ; traditional . The OBI form
has two people kneeling and facing each other
over a dining table with abundant food ( [CO;
originally, grain piled up in container > ‘table
laid with plentiful food’]). Overall original sense
is thus felt to be ‘two people (host and guest)
facing each other over table with much food’,
and hence ‘feast, entertain’. In early Chinese
there was also a near-homophone meaning
‘region’ and – in Han times – ‘old home village’.
At first these two separate words ‘feast, entertain’
and ‘old home village, village’ were written
with the same graph, but in the seal script they
came to be written differently (at least in some
contexts): the two kneeling figures on either
side were each modified to (the one on the
left as a mirror image), itself consisting of
(here ‘place, area’) with an element beneath for
853
勤
KIN, tsutomeru
work, duties
L3
12 strokes
TSŪKINcommuting
KINBEN na diligent
tsutomesakiwork-place
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen); traditional .
Has 78 ‘strength, effort’, and 堇 (‘drought
deity’; borrowed for ‘smear, paint; clay’; later
associated sense either ‘empty’, giving ‘empty
space in the chest for breathing’, generalized
to ‘chest’ (Katō, Yamada, Tōdō), or ‘be nervous/
excited’, giving ‘feel uneasiness’ (Ogawa). The
former interpretation seems persuasive. 209
‘flesh, meat’ was added to what was originally
just (Shuowen has as the main entry heading,
noting that it is sometimes written with
added). KJ1970:269; YK1976:132; TA1965:302-7;
OT1968:132,820; DJ2009:v2:735.
Mnemonic: FLESHY EMBRACING CHEST IS
LIKE A CONTAINER MARKED ‘X’
‘kneeling person’; this gave ‘place where people
are’, i.e. ‘region; village’ (see 376), to unambiguously
represent the word for ‘region; village’.
In the modern form , right-hand is the
short form of (as in 376), and the left-hand
three strokes are just a corrupted shape which
we first see in this graph at the clerical script
stage. Separate from this, another graph
(NJK), made up of / over 163 ‘eat’ was
devised, and this development allowed ‘feast,
entertain’ – the original meaning – to be written
unambiguously. The above should be seen only
as a tentative account of the etymology of
because of all the variables in interpretation
of the different graph shapes involved,
combined with word etymologies which are
only provisional in some cases (see Schuessler,
for instance). YK1976:133-4; KJ1970:180-81;
MS1995:v2:1332-4,v1:182-3; QX2000:217-8;
AS2007:533-4. We suggest taking 乡 as ‘odd’
threads 29, as ‘uncovered food’ 163, and
‘village’ 376.
Mnemonic: ODD STRINGY UNCOVERED
FOOD SERVED IN VILLAGE’
墐 ) as phonetic with associated sense ‘muscle
power’ (Yamada, Katō), giving ‘work’, or ‘tighten,
brace oneself’ (Ogawa), giving ‘exert energy’.
OT1968:129,217; YK1976:140; KJ1970:294-5;
MS1995:270-71. Here is not ‘plant’ 53, but we
suggest use as such, and take as 44 ‘grow’
in (seed-) box .
Mnemonic: WORK DUTIFULLY IN EFFORT TO
GROW PLANTS IN SEED-BOX
266 The 181 Sixth Grade Characters