Amazing Chinese Characters (238) Eyes - 眼

We learnt the character Eye - 目 in Post 17. Now we are going to learn character for Eyes.

There is no difference between Eye and Eyes in English but the difference is exist between Chinese characters.

The big seal script for Eyes is

Let's compare it with character Eye - 目， same as in big seal script

We can see that there are two Eyes + a person (right bottom part), which means a person with two eyes. The 目 just means Eye, general eye.

The small seal script for the Eyes is

We see two 目s, and a body in the right bottom. Two big eyes and one small body emphasize the Eyes.

The clerical script for the character is

which is changed a lot: the right top 目 become 日 (Sun),  maybe simplified or lazy to miss one line; the bottom person changed to X alike, the pictography is damaged.

The Pinyin for 眼 is Yan3.

目 and 眼 both are popular in Chinese. 目 is more used in 文言文 （old version of Chinese) or proverbs; 眼 is more used in modern Chinese or oral Chinese.