480531170

meaning, and ‘mountain stream’ as an extended
sense on the basis that most such gullies have
water running through them. The seal form
(CO ) ‘valley; mountain stream’ is treated
separately from in Shuowen, but Kangxi
zidian treats both as being the same. Note:
is made up of 1739 ‘claw’ – sometimes, as
here, ‘hand’ – with 29 ‘thread’ (here, ‘rope’),
with 56 ‘big’ (here, ‘person’), giving ‘person
bound with rope’, i.e. ‘(one type of) slave’ (Gu).
OT1968:585; GY2008:1656,1091; QX2000:264;
MS1995:v1:304-05; AS2007:526. We suggest
taking as ‘man’ 601.
Mnemonic: MAN PLUCKED BY CLAWS FROM
WATER IN VALLEY
1263
L1
蛍
KEI, hotaru
firefly
11 strokes
KEIKŌfluorescence
KEISETSUstudying
hotarugari catching fireflies
Bronze ( ). Not in Shuowen. Traditional
form: . Clearly there is 60 ‘insect’, but
views diverge concerning in this graph.
According to Qiu there is a bronze form
equivalent to which once functioned as
an independent graph, and originally depicted
burning torches, and this does seem
a reasonable interpretation of the bronze
shape. Qiu regards as the ancestral form
of ‘flicker’ (Schuessler says ‘light of a lamp/
fire’), but cautions against taking as always
functioning as an abbreviation of in
later stages of the script. A similar view takes
(bronze form) as ‘crossed pine torches’,
giving ‘insect which flies and emits light’
(Shirakawa). Alternatively, the top part of the
bronze predecessor of is taken as representing
flames or light of fire, but the graph
as a whole is interpreted as the predecessor
of (Katō). QX2000:237,239; AS2007:575;
SS1984:233-4; KJ1970:79-80. Suggest taking
top element as ‘ornate cover’, and three short
strokes as flames.
Mnemonic: A FIREFLY IS AN INSECT
ORNATELY COVERED WITH ‘FLAMES’
1264
傾
KEI, katamuku/keru
incline, dedicate
L2
13 strokes
KEIKŌtendency
KEITŌdevotion
KEISHADO gradient
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Originally
written (see Note below), with 103
‘head’, and (originally, pictograph of
person with bent, withered leg; by extension,
‘bent’) as semantic and phonetic,
usually taken as giving ‘incline the head’;
later generalized to ‘incline/lean’. By seal
stage, when was also being borrowed to
represent several other words, ‘person’ 41
was added to more clearly indicate ‘lean/incline’,
thus . ‘Dedication’ is minor extended
sense. Note 1: is now used to write koro
‘time, period’; see 1356. Note 2: is taken
by Mizukami and Katō as originally showing
a bent, withered leg, and based on shape by
extension ‘ladle’. Ogawa, though, takes ‘ladle’
as orig. meaning, and Gu takes as ‘woman
kneeling submissively’, while Katō considers
in /as having only a phonetic role
with associated sense ‘not straight’, and by
extension ‘lame’, and that the Shuowen explanation
should be seen as ‘head’ representing
‘body’, thus giving ‘bent body’, but this
seems debatable. See also Appendix for
contrasting with 匕 (‘change’). TA1965:504-
9; GY2008:602,1074,11; MS1995:v1:154-5;
OT1968:77,132; KJ1970:357,796; AS2007:432.
Suggest association with ‘change’ 258 in
its original sense ‘fallen person’.
Mnemonic: FALLEN BENT PERSON CHANGES
INCLINATION OF HEAD
The Remaining 1130 Characters 375