480531170

1559
L1
帥
SUI
commander
9 strokes
TŌSUIsupreme command
GENSUIfield marshal
SHŌSUI commander
Bronze ; seal . Has 1232 ‘cloth’, and
left-hand element which at seal stage is
(taken as pictograph of buttocks 370 or hillocks
262) as phonetic, but based on earlier
bronze form Katō takes this to have initially
been not but a similar shape having vertical
stroke on left with two down-facing claws
indicating barbs, thus ‘barbed cane/whip’,
representing a word that was a near-homophone
of that represented by . Either way,
associated sense of left-hand element is taken
by Katō to be ‘wipe’, thus ‘cloth for wiping’,
i.e. ‘towel’; Ogawa also takes overall meaning
as ‘towel’, but takes associated sense (for )
as ‘hang down’. However, another view sees
left-hand element in bronze form described
above as indicating person holding in both
hands an object taken as some sort of fabric
to present as gift, with ‘cloth’ added on
the right as a clarifying determinative (Gu).
The meaning ‘lead, command’ is a loan
usage of to write what was otherwise
sometimes written 767 (‘rate; command’).
KJ1970:525-6; OT1968:316; GY2008:156;
BK1957:136. Suggest taking as ‘hillocks’.
Mnemonic: COMMANDER CARRIES CLOTH
BANNER UP HILL
1560
粋
SUI, iki
pure, essence, ‘style’
L1
10 strokes
BUSUI inelegant
SUIJINman of taste
SUIKYŌ whim, caprice
1561
衰
SUI, otoroeru
weaken, wane
L1
10 strokes
SUIJAKUdebility
RŌSUIsenility
SEISUIvicissitudes
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen); traditional .
Has 220 ‘rice’, and 564 (‘end; soldier’)
as phonetic with associated sense ‘pound,
smash’, thus ‘rice well pounded and impurityfree’;
i.e. ‘pure’. The meaning ‘smart, stylish’
is Japanese-only usage. The simplified form
seems to have become popular in the
Northern Wei Dynasty (387-534). OT1968:761;
SS1984:484-5; FC1974:v2:1689. Suggest righthand
as 13 ‘nine’ and 35 ‘ten’.
Mnemonic: NINETEEN GRAINS OF PURE RICE
Seal . The seal form has 444 ‘garment’,
and a second element between the upper
and lower parts of to represent (interwoven)
straw or similar pointed downwards,
giving ‘rain-cape, cape’. Shuowen defines as
‘rain-cape made from vegetation’. Gu alone
prefers to interpret as incorporating a hat also.
Mizukami lists a proposed bronze equivalent.
MS1995:v2:1166-7; OT1968:902; GY2008:1104.
Suggest as pierced ‘hole’ 22.
Mnemonic: CLOTHING WEAKENED AFTER
HOLE PIERCED IN IT
The Remaining 1130 Characters 463