480531170

1575
L1
井
SEI, SHŌ, i
a well
4 strokes
YUSEIoil well
TENJŌceiling
ido well
OBI ; seal . Pictograph representing a
bird’s eye view of the frame around a well.
Some bronze occurrences, and the seal form,
have the modified shape (see 1812), which
was commonly used in clerical script, but
1576
姓
SEI, SHŌ
surname
L2
8 strokes
SEIMEIsurname
KAISEIname change
HYAKUSHŌ farmer
OBI ; seal . Consists of 37 ‘woman’,
with 44 ‘give birth, be born’ taken either as
i] semantic and phonetic, or ii] phonetic only
(on the basis that originally referred only
to the emergence of plants, not the birth of
humans [Katō]), but either way giving ‘same
blood line’. In ancient China it was only women
who used a family or clan name, hence
the determinative; later, such a name was
then this reverted to in block script. ,
originally just a variant of ‘well’, and still
noted as such in Kangxi zidian, has evolved
in more recent times as a separate graph
used in Japanese with the reading donburi, a
word originally meaning ‘ceramic bowl’, but
now commonly used to refer to food served
in such a bowl, typically a bowl of rice with
a topping such as chicken and egg, or eel.
KJ1970:596; DJ2009:v2:417; OT1968:35,24;
ZY2009:v1:6; SK1984:32-3; FC1974:v1:51-2.
Mnemonic: WELL HAS SQUARE FRAME
adopted by men also, but the element
remained. In Japan up until the Meiji Period
(1868–1912) commoners – particularly farmers/peasants
– generally did not use a family
name, despite the old term hyakushō for
farmers, which somewhat confusingly means
literally a ‘hundred family names’. This term
derives from ancient times in which it was
applied to a restricted class of elite farmers of
imperial land, but was subsequently broadened
to apply to farmers/peasants in general,
particularly in the Edo Period (1600-1868).
KJ1970:596-7; OT1968:256; MS1995:v1:322-3.
Mnemonic: WOMAN GIVEN SURNAME UPON
BIRTH
1577
征
SEI
conquer, go afar
L1
8 strokes
SEIFUKUsubjugation
ENSEIexpedition
SEII pacifying barbarians
OBI ; seal . Originally written as just
43 (‘correct, proper’), the OBI form of which
has a foot pointed upwards towards an element
shaped like 22 (‘mouth; entrance;
hole’,) which Qiu takes as representing a destination.
Since there were two words in early
Chinese (Late Han) meaning ‘correct’ and
‘march against’ respectively and these were
homophones, to clearly distinguish the latter
in writing the element 131’go/walk along
a road’ (abbreviated form of [originally,
‘crossroads’]) was added, resulting in .
Note: together with an upward-facing foot
combine to give ‘walk step-by-step along
a road’ (full way of writing /85). As both
and /have much the same meaning,
early graphs sometimes fluctuate between
the two. For this reason, in pre-modern texts
variants such as, for instance, written with
/as determinative instead of are
sometimes encountered. QX2000:191-2,330;
MS1995:v2:1286-7,v1:702-3; AS2007:612.
Mnemonic: GO PROPERLY ON THE ROAD TO
CONQUER AFAR
468 The Remaining 1130 Characters