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Glyph elements [ Toggle Font ]
Related to and seemingly the element used to represent a prickly shrub's or a tree's defense of THORNS (朿) inside branches at times that prevent animals from getting inside the tree's structure. The connotation is that THORNS will prick inside your skin AND REMAIN EMBEDDED FOR A LONG TIME, CAUSING CONTINUOUS PAINS AND PROBLEMS the same as in English, a「thorny problem」or「you prick!」(then as: 'woody inserted within spread legs'). TAPER is derived from the shape of any prick's head, not the shape of this glyph.
Moreover, as a「rod (丨) extending from within king (王)」the full meaning of PRICK is also apparent, applicable in various ways that should not require elucidation, particularly with regard to ancient China when the courts of kings generally were comprised of myriad concubines along with their female "attendants" that numbered into the thousands, in most cases.
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?
(More...)
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.
Primal elements
Used in glyphs (or, see also): 148 entries
Related glyphs [ Toggle font ]
Similar glyphs with related meanings: 11 entries
- Glyph.00116
- Strokes: 04
- elements
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This publication has included material from the MDBG free online English to Chinese dictionary files in accordance with the license provisions of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
This publication has included material from the JMdict (EDICT, etc.) dictionary files in accordance with the license provisions of the Electronic Dictionaries Research Group.
This publication has included material from the Unicode Character Database. Copyright © 1991-2016 Unicode, Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed under these Terms of Use.