Old glyph meaning to SELL something, to OFFER FOR SALE. Top element is「penis, pride, put out」and the lower element is「buy」or「copulating orifices, meat for the fleshpot, wealth.」From the perspective of the seller as in displaying goods by「proud of 'putting out' for others to buy.」In Chinese, meaning to「sell, show off, to flaunt, or to betray, treachery, sell-out.」「Ensnaring, snagging, netting penises for the fleshpot」a hooker hooking a client for a short-term rental as either pimping or prostitution, SELLING a service as the first profession and source of business (along with soothsaying, and treating gonorrhea as the witch-doctor). Being a「prick for netting money」seems to more closely fit the modern corporate sales department mentality. Modern elements of SELL are now「penis with bound and squatting legs」as in a man performing the actions of copulating with his「penis bound inside as he is bending at the knees」a customer who has been SOLD prostitution services. Formerly, the center element was「enclosed squatting, orifice copulation」as in to capture or captivate a person by squatting like an animal in a pen while humping another from behind as do animals copulating, but in modern elements has been simplified to「netted, snagged.」BETRAYAL may have been related to a sell-out, or how one's daughter may have felt after her sale. Some browsers will not display this glyph using certain fonts…the actual glyph may possibly be seen within other glyphs as an element.
Always keep in mind that these glyphs most likely were originally designed by groups of clever old men as vulgar riddles for their own entertainment
(see 籒 for that),
representing Chinese society many thousands of years ago, but intended NOT as a written or spoken language when created.
If these glyphs had been intended for language use, the sages could not have possibly designed a worse system!
Is it truly possible that all these glyphs started out as off-color jokes and puzzles?
Yes! It is, and often with multiple correct answers to each riddle, the same as is true today.
Sex had no shame in ancient China.
Why would it?
But, have there been necessary rewrites and altered explanations of the original elemental meanings over the centuries?
No one is suggesting these glyphs depict contemporary life in China, Japan, or anywhere else.
This site describes glyph meanings, not people.
These glyphs however, describe many and various things, including people, long before there were any notions of becoming politically incorrect.
The question to be answered is, should these glyphs continue being used, by anyone, anywhere, for expressing language?
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Despite how seemingly bad our human existence is today, do you actually believe that the so-called good old days were any better?
Or could they have been worse?
By the way, with a limited number of the same elements used by the sages again and again to form these glyphs,
you should expect to find the same explanations again and again, as tedious as that may become, and as an inherent trait of any lexicon.
This site explains multiple meanings of glyphs ignored or censored by other sources, generally as being too embarrassing to admit today.
