Amazing Chinese Characters (203) Straight - 直

The shell bone script for character Straight is

the bottom

is character Eye.

The straight vertical line on the top of Eye means that watching forward to see if it is a straight line just as a carpenter checks if the wood side is straight.

which is a eye watching straight forward.

Its bronze script is

The bent line on the left is believed by some experts to be a comparison with the straight line: the straight line is different from the left bent line.The right bottom is an eye, the right top is a straight line, there is a dot in the middle, which some experts think is written mistakenly. But I think that is an indicator for the straight line. The indicator is like a pointer, the dot is the point people is pointing to. In this case, the dot means "Look, here is the straight line".

Its small seal script is

The left is the bent line, similar to the one in the bronze script. The dot on the right top becomes a line, and the right bottom is character Eye of small seal script.

The clerical script is

The left bent line disappeared, but the right bottom has one more line. Experts believe that the horizontal line on the bottom is from the bent line on the left in bronze script, and small seal script.

Its song typeface is

直

very similar to the clerical script

Its pinyin is Zhi2.