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914
L3
城
JŌ, shiro
castle
9 strokes
JŌKAmachicastle-town
HimejiJŌHimeji Castle
shiroatocastle ruins
Bronze forms , ; seal . Bronze forms
vary, but some already have the structure
‘earth, ground’ 64, with 545 (‘become, make,
consist’) as phonetic with associated sense
915
蒸
JŌ, musu/reru
steam
L3
13 strokes
JŌKIsteam
JŌRYŪdistillation
mushiatsuihumid
Late graph (Shuowen). Comprises 53 ‘plants,
grass’, with (CO, ‘flames rise up’; see Note
below) as semantic and phonetic, meaning
‘burn’, to give ‘hemp stalks’. Hemp stalks were
what remained after the hemp fibre was
removed, and were used as a fuel; Schuessler
says ‘brushwood (as firewood)’. By extension,
‘burn’. Yamada treats ‘steam’ as a loan usage,
‘pile up’, to give a structure built by successively
piling up earth, i.e. ‘wall, city wall’ (Katō,
Yamada). Mizukami lists several alternative (but
similar) interpretations of , i.e. the associated
sense as ‘gather together in one place’, giving
‘pile up earth and gather citizenry in one
place’, and ‘pound and make firm’, giving ‘place
built by pounding earth’; used in Japanese
to mean ‘castle’. YK1976:279; KJ1970:595-6;
MS1995:v1:270-71.
Mnemonic: CASTLE CONSISTS OF EARTH!
while Mizukami, in his entry for (the predecessor
of ), treats ‘steam’ as an extended
sense based on steaming that which is above
a fire. Note: comprises 8 ‘fire, flames’,
with [originally, ‘help someone up out of
a pit’ > ‘help, assist’] as phonetic with associated
sense ‘raise up high’, giving ‘flames rise
up’. YK1976:281; GY2008:1554; MS1995:v2:798-
9,v1:10-11; AS2007:612. Suggest take as
hot plate and 氶 as a combination of ‘water’
42 and armless baby > , to give ‘armless
water-baby’ (!)
Mnemonic: GRASS-COVERED ARMLESS
WATER-BABY STEAMS ON FIERY HOTPLATE
916
L3
針
SHIN, hari
needle, pointer
10 strokes
HŌSHINpolicy, line
SHINROcourse
hariganewire
Seal ; late graph (post-Shuowen). Has
16 ‘metal’, and 35 ‘ten’ as semantic and
phonetic, meaning ‘needle’ > ‘metal needle’.
YK1976:288; OT1968:1036; MS1995:v1:164-5.
Mnemonic: TEN METAL NEEDLES POINTING
THE WAY
917
L1
仁
JIN, NI
benevolent, humanity
4 strokes
JIN’AIbenevolence
JINSHAa humanitarian
NIŌDeva king
OBI ; seal . Views vary. Has 41 ‘person’
(Yamada takes as ‘hunchback’, based on certain
old forms), with 65 (‘two’) as phonetic
with associated sense ‘baggage, load’, thus
‘person with baggage’; Katō takes ‘hunchback’
as extended sense based on ‘person with load’.
Mizukami extends range of to encompass
‘carry; be pregnant’, overall meaning ‘be pregnant,
carry a load’. Ogawa, by contrast, takes
as having associated sense ‘be kind to, love’.
Schuessler gives the sense ‘act like a human
being’, which he considers a later meaning.
YK1976:291-2; MS1995:v1:42-3; KJ1970:39-40;
OT1968:43; AS2007:440.
Mnemonic: TWO PEOPLE SHOWING
HUMANITY
The 181 Sixth Grade Characters 283