Monday, January 11, 2021

Amazing Chinese Characters (327) Swallow - 吞

 The big seal script of character Swallow is

The top is character Sky (天), the bottom is character Mouth (口). Open mouth to try to swallow sky is the original meaning of the character. The character means not only swallow as English word but only means that swallow something a little bit too big to handle - you can do but not easy and comfortable. It is like the snake swallows the victim animal, at least we see the process is very difficult and uncomfortable.

The small seal script of the character is


Similar, the top is Sky, and the bottom is Mouth.

The clerical script of the character is


The top is Sky, the bottom is Mouth, the appearance is changed but the basic concept is not.

Its Pinyin is Tun1.


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