How a「rod erect with tense gasps and emphasis」or a「hand and no-longer-integrated foot with emphasis within」was MANIFESTING TRUE HEART, SINCERITY in dynastic China is left up to the reader's imagination.
　Also depicts mercuric sulfide, or cinnabar, also known as vermillion, an oily, sticky REDDISH-ORANGE substance insoluble in water that was formerly the principal ore from which mercury was extracted, and was used for many purposes, principally as ointment applied to mauled feet after dis-integrating in the attempt to prevent or limit the spread of infection, and as a treatment for gonorrhea and sexually transmitted disease by application within the penile meatus as depicted by these elements.
　「For hundreds of years, mercury-containing products claimed to heal a varied and strangely unrelated host of ailments. Melancholy, constipation, syphilis, influenza, parasites—you name it, and someone swore that mercury could fix it. Mercury was used ubiquitously for centuries, at all levels of society, in its liquid form (quicksilver) or as a salt.」
　　[　https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2017/10/22/mercury-was-considered-a-cure-until-it-killed-you.html 2021-02-05　]　
　Glyph also associated with a 'doll festival,' nowadays used to celebrate healthy little girls. See 丹秀雛 and the Hina Matsuri, or little girl festival:「…the origin of this custom of Japanese Hinamatsuri, could be said that it dates all the way back to ancient China. In ancient China, it is told that there was a custom for people to go into the river, to purify themselves on the first snake day that comes at the beginning of lunar March (calendars corresponded to Oriental zodiac animals as well as several other things such as time, year and direction). This custom is said to have derived from a Yao (an ethnic minority hill tribe originating in southern China) tribal custom, a festival of spring worship in southern and southwestern China. The Yao custom of this spring festival, is told to be the worship dead females along the riverside on the 3rd day of the 3rd month of the lunar year…」
　　[　https://www.bite-japan.com/kako/calendar03-e.html 2014-02-15, emphasis ours] but no mention is made of the cause of death, such as a gangrenous foot infection.
　Hinamatsuri in Japan is celebrated in various ways, two of which are drinking of thick, white, pasty, sweet amazake, and eating Venus clams (hamaguri,)…you guess why. Hinamatsuri is also referred to as 'Peach Flowering,' not necessarily because of peach blossoms in early March in either Japan or in China where the festival originated, but due to the similarity between the shape and skin texture of ripened peaches, very young girls, and flowering/deflowering. The Japanese did not practice foot dis-integrating, generally, and merely copied the Chinese by adopting similar festivals without always fully knowing the original purposes behind the traditions. Profuse bleeding after a botched foot-dis-integrating and cinnabar accounted for the traditional red carpeting used under the figurines.
　Used as a suffix for medicines from a time when folks commonly believed mercury was a wonderful healing agent. But, various compounds containing mercury can be quite harmful, particularly if ingested by a developing fetus or an infant, and now recognized as 'toxic, dangerous for the environment' in the United States of America among other places on the Earth (don't eat the big groupers, either). Metallic liquid mercury will not ordinarily cause any harm to humans, on the skin or even if ingested (nevertheless, don't try it at home…the mercury vapor released can harm humans).
　「Mercury is a major toxic metal ranking top in the Toxic Substances List. Cinnabar (contains mercury sulfide) has been used in traditional medicines for thousands years as an ingredient in various remedies, and 40 cinnabar-containing traditional medicines are still used today. Little is known about toxicology profiles or toxicokinetics of cinnabar and cinnabar-containing traditional medicines, and the high mercury content in these Chinese medicines raises justifiably escalations of public concern.」
　　[　https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755212/ 2014-02-15　]　
　Alternatively,「erect with no-longer-integrated foot widened, arrayed horizontally」may also depict a sticky REDDISH-ORANGE substance assuming the skin split wide open for some reason, perhaps due to rotting flesh or saturated with blood…and just such an infection might have been the reason mercuric sulfide was applied to a foot, and why the foot was spread open, not bound with cloth.
　Another purpose being to spread mercuric sulfide thinly onto sheets of canvas used as sails in order to better catch all the wind and as a waterproofing agent due to its insolubility in water. Cinnabar also made a colorful reddish sail, the source for the traditional coloring of Chinese junk sails. Note that if the sails had been dipped in「ox blood」for waterproofing, the sail color would have become dark brown…probably draw some flies, too. But perhaps the original sails were made literally of「stretched skins」from oxen (that is, leather), and were a bit bloody anyway.

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: red; pellet; powder; cinnabar
Japanese: red earth, vermilion, Red
Unihan extended: cinnabar (native HgS); vermilion (artificial HgS used as pigment)
EDRDG: rust-colored; red; red lead; pills; sincerity

Used within names (nanori)
た　･　たみ　･　まこと