480531170

997
欲
YOKU, hoshii
desire, greed
L3
11 strokes
YOKUBŌdesire
SHOKUYOKUappetite
monohoshigewistful
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Has 496 (originally,
person yawning with mouth open wide;
‘lack, omit’), and 135 (‘valley’) as phonetic
with associated sense taken either as i] ‘continuous’
(Katō, Yamada), or ii] ‘about to eat’ (Ogawa),
in either case giving ‘have mouth open’, and by
extension ‘appetite’. Later extended to ‘desire’
and ‘greed’ in general. KJ1970:888; YK1976:486-
7; OT1968:532.
Mnemonic: GREEDY PERSON LACKS VALLEY
SO DESIRES ONE
998
L3
翌
YOKU
next (in time)
11 strokes
YOKUJITSUthe next day
YOKUCHŌnext morning
YOKUNENthe next year
OBI () ; seal () . The more familiar
shape , with the same components arranged
differently, is a popular form (quite late – appears
to be Tang Dynasty onwards). It has 82
‘wings, feathers’, with 77 ‘stand, leave’; the
latter element being taken in one analysis as
phonetic with associated sense ‘fly’ (Yamada),
but another commentator rejects this, regarding
it as having a semantic function here,
giving ‘raise the wings (in flight)’ (Tōdō). ‘Next’
appears to be a borrowed meaning, though
just possibly related to time flying. YK1976:487;
TA1965:87; OT1968:802; FC1974:v2:1772.
Mnemonic: THE WINGS OF TIME FLY
AWAY – TILL THE NEXT TIME
999
乱
RAN, midareru/su
disorder, riot
L3
7 strokes
RANBŌviolence
HANRANrebellion
midareashiout of step
Bronze form A , bronze form B ; seal ;
traditional . The bronze forms are divergent,
as are the analyses. Bronze form A, which is
considered to be the ancestral (i.e. original)
form of , has one hand over and one hand
beneath some thread, taken to signify ‘unravel
tangled thread’ (Tōdō, Ogawa, Shirakawa);
commentators do not say so, but it appears
that the thread might be tangled on a bobbin
(the shape in the middle of bronze form A,
similar to but turned ninety degrees). The
modern right-hand element is a variant of
1072, which as an independent graph has
been interpreted in various ways, but typically
it is thought to represent a curved knife with
blades at either end and a handle in the middle;
here, perhaps rather a blunt instrument to help
unravel thread. Bronze form B, tentatively identified
by Katō (‘tentatively’, as he describes it as
‘extremely unusual’) has a figure on the right
which he interprets as ‘deformed, twisted’, and
a left-hand part as phonetic with associated
sense ‘be shortened/reduced’, giving an original
meaning ‘be shortened’. As for the sense ‘disorder’,
this could have arisen through focusing
on the graph’s tangled thread rather than the
act of disentangling (Tōdō), or it could be a
loan usage. According to Shirakawa, initially
was used for ‘rebel, disorder’, and for ‘bring
to order’, but later this distinction was lost.
However this came about, the sense ‘disorder’
has predominated. TA1965:555-7; OT1968:26-8;
SS1984:865; KJ1970:895-6; FC1977:21.
Mnemonic: KNEELING PERSON WITH
TONGUE OUT MIGHT LEAD TO RIOT
304 The 181 Sixth Grade Characters