480531170

1802
L1
篤
TOKU
sincere, serious
16 strokes
TOKUSHIbenevolence
KITOKUseriously ill
TOKU toseriously
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Has 210
‘horse’, combined with / 58 ‘bamboo’
as phonetic with associated sense taken
either as i] ‘crouch, cower’, giving original
meaning ‘slow horse’ (Ogawa), or ii] ‘stamp
down’, giving ‘horse advances steadily
putting its hooves down firmly’ (Katō). In
either interpretation, ‘sincere’ and ‘serious’
are taken as loan usages. On a cultural note,
the two components bamboo and horse,
pronounced chikuba, refer to a toddler’s
wooden horse, and the term chikuba no
tomo (now rather dated) means
‘a friend from early childhood’. OT1968:1126;
KJ1970:744.
Mnemonic: A BAMBOO HORSE SIGNIFIES
SERIOUS SINCERITY
1803
栃
tochi
horse chestnut
L1
9 strokes
TochigiKENTochigi Prefecture
tochigayuchestnut porridge
tochikonachestnut meal
1804
凸
TOTSU, deko
convex, protrusion
L1
5 strokes
dekobokounevenness
TOTSUMENconvexity
ŌTOTSUunevenness
This graph refers to the ‘Japanese horse
chestnut (Aesculus turbinata)’ or its fruit. A
graph of the kokuji type, devised in Japan
using the formational principles of Chinese
characters. Determinative is 73 ‘tree, wood’,
but etymology of the graph unclear beyond
that. OT1968:501. We suggest taking the
right-hand element as cliff and 227 ‘ten
thousand’.
Mnemonic: THERE ARE TEN THOUSAND
CHESTNUT TREES ON THE CLIFF
A late, post-Shuowen graph. Pictographic
representation of a shape with projecting
middle part, thus conveying ‘convex’.
Contrasts with 1061 ‘concave’. According
to Qiu, devised after the Qin and Han dynasties.
OT1968:109; QX2000:54,175.
Mnemonic: BOX-SHAPE HAS A PROTRUSION,
SO IT IS CONVEX
1805
L2
突
8
TOTSU, tsuku
thrust, lunge,
protrude
strokes
TOTSUZENsuddenly
TOTSUNYŪthrust
tsukkomuthrust, plunge
OBI ; seal ; traditional . Consists
of 860 ‘hole, cave’, and 19 ‘dog’, but
interpretations vary considerably as to how
to analyse the two elements. In one view,
taken as ‘dog rushes out from hole/cave’, and
by extension ‘project; sudden’ (Ogawa, Gu).
Ma, though, argues this is an inappropriate
analysis, given that OBI forms depict a
dog facing into a hole, not out from it, and
considers the graph originally meant ‘sudden’.
A different approach takes as ‘hole/
538 The Remaining 1130 Characters