간지
classics
| Celestial Stem |
Meaning | |
|---|---|---|
| Original | Modern | |
| 甲 갑 | shell | first (book I, person A etc.), methyl group, helmet, armor, words related to beetles, crustaceans, fingernails, toenails |
| 乙 을 | fishguts | second (book II, person B etc.), ethyl group, twist |
| 丙 병 | fishtail [1] | third, bright, fire, fishtail (rare) |
| 丁 정 | nail(fastener) | fourth, male adult, robust, T-shaped, to strike, a surname |
| 戊 무 | lance | (not used) |
| 己 기 | threads on a loom [2] | self |
| 庚 경 | evening star | age (of person) |
| 辛 신 | to offend superiors [3] | bitter, piquant, toilsome |
| 壬 임 | burden[4] | to shoulder, to trust with office |
| 癸 계 | disposed grass [5] | (not used) |
- ↑ Wenlin Dictionary: Picture of a fish tail.
- ↑ Wenlin Dictionary: 己 may have depicted thread on a loom; an ancient meaning was 'unravel threads', which was later written 紀 jì. 己 was borrowed both for the word jǐ 'self', and for the name of the sixth Heavenly Stem (天干).
- ↑ Wenlin Dictionary: "The seal has 𢆉 'knock against, offend' below, and 亠 above; the scholastic commentators say: to offend (亠 = ) 上 the superiors"
- ↑ Wenlin Dictionary: 壬 rén depicts "a 丨 carrying pole supported 一 in the middle part and having one object attached at each end, as always done in China" --Karlgren(1923). (See 扁担 biǎndan). Now the character 任 rèn has the meaning of carrying a burden, and the original character 壬 is used only for the ninth of the ten heavenly stems (天干).
- ↑ Wenlin Dictionary: 癶 "stretch out the legs" + 天; The nicely disposed grass, on which the Ancients poured the libations offered to the Manes
- ↑ 'Celestial_Stem', Wikipedia[
