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CHI N ・ SHI N
ma ku ra
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Any「woody in doubtful condition」due to infection might cause the person to REST ONE'S HEAD UPON SOMETHING (perhaps both heads) and require the use of a PILLOW of some kind, especially if near death and lying down most of the time. Note the right element is comprised of「erection surrounded, with bent penis」that in Chinese meant「to move on to the next one, to go out and leave alone」due to increased risk or non-functionality.
Formerly, what are today called pillows of the Japanese upper classes were more of a wooden HEADREST rather than sacks filled with soft stuffing. The device held a lady's head off the floor after obtaining that extra-special coiffure, in the same manner as a concubine's head was kept off the floor by a woody, but frankly, it seems that sleep itself with a wooden PILLOW may remain a「doubtful condition.」
In any case, some members suggest that「tree, plants」in a「weakened, doubtful condition」may have referred to leaves or softened, rotting wood from the forest floor stuffed into a sack that might have made a more comfortable pillow for those of us in the lower classes who never minded the smell anyway, but also may have contributed to waking up with a few small critters in one's hair.
Today, modern PILLOWS are often full of critters, too (mites). Note that it is generally not the bugs themselves that cause allergies, but rather the material they leave behind after feasting on your natural body oil and sloughed skin all night. Japanese often air out their pillows and bedding in the sunshine whenever possible to counteract this, perhaps as an acknowledgement of the often「doubtful condition」of any PILLOW.
Modern definitions (that generally disregard history) …excluding politically incorrect concepts and other meanings deemed offensive today; may list only pigeonholed definitions, euphemisms, or meaningless mnemonics)
Chinese: pillow; to pillow; to rest one's head
Japanese: pillow, bolster, introduction, lead-in, near one's pillow, at one's bedside, pillow fight
Unihan extended: pillow
EDRDG: pillow
Always keep in mind that these glyphs were originally created by groups of clever old men as vulgar riddles and analogies for their own entertainment
(see 籒 for that)
and represented Chinese society many thousands of years ago, and not as a written or spoken language.
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!
Sex had no shame in ancient China. Why would it? And now, there is a cover-up.
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 bad the human world is today, do you actually believe that the so-called good old days were any better? Or they could only 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 dictionary.
This site explains the dual meanings of glyphs most often ignored by other sources that provide you with only the sanctioned definition, generally.
Primal elements
Japanese vocabulary: 65 entries
Chinese usage: 39 entries
Used in glyphs (or, see also): 3 entries
- Glyph.01833
- Strokes: 08
- grade_08
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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.
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