480531170

(profile) for ‘bed’ with a stroke added, taken
as abbreviated shape to represent ‘person’
or ‘quilt’ (ancestral form of 404 ‘sick-bed,
sickness’), providing what was to become
the standard for this graph at the seal stage,
in Shuowen. Other meanings such as ‘swiftly’
are probably best regarded as loan usages,
but may relate to the swift onset of disease
/ infection. MS1995:v2:890-91,886-8,928-9;
KJ1970:488-9; MR2007:375; OT1968:677.
Mnemonic: ILLNESS STRIKES AS SWIFTLY AS
AN ARROW
1424
執
SHITSU, SHŪ, toru
take, grasp
L1
11 strokes
SHIPPITSUwriting
SHŪNENtenacity
torinasu mediate
OBI ; seal . Katō takes one element as
a person with arms outstretched, signifying
‘seize, take’, which by the seal stage became
stylized to a shape approximating 丮 905
(‘arms outstretched’), along with another
element seen as the ancestral form of (NJK;
later meaning a gouging instrument, ‘chisel’),
but here as an instrument of punishment, and
by extension ‘criminal’; and he gives overall
meaning as ‘seize a criminal’. Another view of
also takes an element as person with arms
1425
湿
SHITSU, shimeru/su
damp, moist, humid
L2
12 strokes
SHITSUDOhumidity
SHITCHImarshland
shimeppoi damp, dismal
Seal ; traditional . This graph originally
represented the name of a river, comprising
/ 42 ‘water’, here ‘river’, plus 㬎 as phonetic.
Separate from , there was another graph
溼 meaning ‘wet ground, wet’, comprising
water plus 64 ‘earth, ground’, plus ,
typically taken to mean ‘cut threads’ (Tōdō
takes instead as threads below horizontal line
representing surface of water), as phonetic
with associated sense ‘wet, soak in water’. At
OBI and bronze stages, the ancestral form
of 溼 lacked element . Though 溼 and
outstretched, and the other element as wooden
handcuffs; OBI forms do seem to support
this view rather than that which takes instead
as early equivalent of , the OBI equivalent
of which is quite different from that in .
Qiu’s commentary on the block script form
is that the wooden handcuffs were by then
written as , which happens (by chance) to
be the same shape as 295 ‘good fortune’,
and the element 丮 ‘person with outstretched
arms’ became confused with 101 (‘round’),
the latter prevailing. The handcuffs view
has wide support (Qiu, Gu, Ogawa, Tōdō).
KJ1970:355-6; QX2000:190,187; GY2008:246;
OT1968:218; MS1995:v1:272-3,v2:1382-3.
Mnemonic: GOOD FORTUNE IS ROUNDED
OFF BY TAKING A CAPTIVE
are treated as separate graphs in Shuowen,
later they became confused, and the river
name graph came to be used in the sense
‘wet’. The simplified is perhaps based on a
cursive form of . Note: a historical variant
once used for is , with upper element
mistakenly written as 63 ‘field’, and
lower 29 (threads) simplified to , though
is in essence a separate graph originally
denoting a river name (different from the
one referred to by ). The variant need
not concern us here, but it does show the
complicated historical usage around /.
MS1995:v2:772-3; QX2000:311-2; TA1965:789-
92; KJ1970:518; DJ2009:v3:884,915;
SK1984:462; FC1974:v1:1352. Take as ‘sun’
66, as ‘damp’, and 业 as ‘steam rising’.
Mnemonic: SUN ON DAMP GROUND MAKES
STEAM RISE – WHAT HUMIDITY!
The Remaining 1130 Characters 421