480531170

604
L3
副
FUKU
deputy, vice-
11 strokes
FUKUGYŌside-job
FUKUSHI adverb
FUKURYŌJIvice-consul
Seal . Has 198 ‘knife’, and 畐 (CO, ‘widenecked
jar’, see 409) as phonetic with associated
sense ‘open up’, to give ‘open up with a knife’,
such as sacrificial animal. ‘Divide in two’ evolved
as an extended sense, and by Han times one
of the two divided parts, referred to as , had
acquired the meaning ‘secondary’, hence sense
range ‘deputy, vice-, sub’. Mizukami lists one OBI
form that he equates with MS1995:v1:134-5;
KJ1970:828; YK1976:437. Suggest take as 1
‘single’, 22 ‘entrance’, and 63 ‘field’.
Mnemonic: DEPUTY IS CUT DOWN AT SINGLE
ENTRANCE TO FIELD
605
L3
粉
FUN, kona, ko
powder
10 strokes
KAFUNpollen
konagona fragments
mugikowheat flour
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Has 220 ‘rice’,
and 218 (‘divide’) as phonetic with associated
sense ‘break up’, to mean small particles produced
during processing of the rice grain, i.e.
rice flour or rice powder (in ancient times, the
powder was used for make-up), and later ‘flour’
or ‘powder’ in general. KJ1970:256; YK1976:440;
TA1965:730; OT1968:761.
Mnemonic: DIVIDING UP RICE CREATES A LOT
OF POWDER
606
L3
兵
HEI, HYŌ
soldier
7 strokes
HEISHIsoldier
HOHEIinfantry
HEIKIweapon
OBI ; seal . OBI form shows two hands
holding adze (tool similar to an ax, but with
blade at right angles to handle), meaning use
607
L4
別
7
BETSU, wakareru
diverge, split, differ,
special
strokes
BETSUMEIalias
TOKUBETSUspecial
wakareparting
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Consists of 198
‘knife’, with 冎 . The latter element is interpreted
variously as ‘skull, cranium’ (Yamada), or as
adze to strike and make timber flat where cut
with an ax. Extended senses include ‘strike
an enemy’, ‘weapon’ (already from Western
Zhou period [11 th century – 771 BC]), ‘soldier’
(someone with weapon), ‘battle’. KJ1970:836;
MS1995:v1:102-3; YK1976:443-4; AS2007:168.
Suggest taking top element as ‘ax’ 1233 and
lower element as ‘table’.
Mnemonic: SOLDIER TAKES UP AX FROM
TABLE AS A WEAPON
a pictograph of where the base of the skull
and the top vertebra meet (occipital bone)
(Mizukami), or as ‘bone (in general)’ (Ogawa),
to give ‘separate meat from skull/bone with
a knife’, with this leading to the extended
general meaning of ‘separate’. It was also used
in early Chinese for a near-homophone meaning
‘to be different’, and thus ‘special’ may be
regarded as a loan usage. The left-hand side
of , which is noticeably different in shape
in block script from the seal form of 冎 , appears
to result from cursivized equivalents
198 The 200 Fourth Grade Characters