480531170

1546
L1
審
SHIN
judge, investigate
15 strokes
SHINGIdeliberation
FUSHINdoubt
SHINPANjudgment, umpiring
Seal ( 宷 ) . Entry heading in Shuowen has
宷 , comprising 30 ‘roof, building’ over
215 (orig open hand holding grain or similar
> ‘divide up, distinguish’), thus ‘clarify matters
deep inside a house’ (Katō). Katō considers
here carries the nuance ‘deep inside’ through a
word-family connection with 342 ‘deep’, and
1547
震
SHIN, furuu/eru
shake, tremble
L2
15 strokes
JISHINearthquake
miburuitrembling body
furuegoetrembling voice
1548
薪
SHIN, takigi, maki
firewood, kindling
L1
16 strokes
SHINTANfuel
takigigoyawoodshed
makiwariwoodchopping
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Has 165
(‘new’) in its orig meaning ‘chop tree (for
this is supported by Schuessler, who also notes
a possible link. Ogawa takes the meaning as
‘separate and clarify matters covered over’.
Gu interprets the graph (both 宷 and ) as
meaning ‘inquire into/examine closely inside a
room’. The same Shuowen entry also notes the
form with 215 (‘number; guard’) substituted
for , i.e. . Adoption of as the lower element
as an alternative to 宷 at the seal stage
may reflect influence of an earlier variant form.
DJ2009:v1:95; MS1995:v2:1352-4; KJ1970:566;
AS2007:458; OT1968:284; GY2008:727-8.
Mnemonic: INVESTIGATE NUMBERS UNDER
COVER OF ROOF, THEN JUDGE
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Has 3 ‘rain’
(sometimes more broadly, ‘sky, weather’), with
1531 (originally clamshell) as phonetic with
associated sense ‘shake’, thus ‘weather that
makes things shake’ (Mizukami says ‘thunder
rumbles in heavy rainstorm’); sense then generalized
to ‘shake, tremble’. MS1995:v2:1422-3;
OT1968:1086; SS1984:477.
Mnemonic: RAIN MAKES CLAM SHAKE AND
TREMBLE?!
firewood)’, with 53 ‘plant’ added to highlight
this sense – and extended sense ‘firewood’ –
when came to be used in loan usage for
another word meaning ‘new’ (the two were
homophonous in early Chinese). DJ2009:v1:82;
KJ1970:575-6; OT1968:872; AS2007:538-9.
Mnemonic: USE NEWLY CHOPPED PLANTS
AS KINDLING
1549
刃
JIN, ha, yaiba
blade, sword
L1
3 strokes
HAKUJINdrawn sword
hamonobladed object
RYŌbadouble blade
OBI ; seal ; traditional (Kangxi zidian) 刃 /
. One of a small number of characters of the
‘indicative symbol’ type in which stroke(s) added
to a pictograph represent (a word of) different
meaning, in this case, 198 ‘knife, sword’, plus
to highlight ‘blade’. The form occurs early
in Chinese calligraphic tradition (Northern Wei
onwards). Note that in many Chinese characters
means ‘knife’ rather than ‘sword’. Also note that
the blade here is the inside edge, unlike the katana.
QX2000:183; MS1995:v1:122-3; OT1968:110;
FC1974:v1:201; KZ2001:237-8/3671; MR2007:305.
Mnemonic: SWORD WITH MARKED BLADE
The Remaining 1130 Characters 459