Amazing Chinese Characters (330) Gift - 礼

 The big seal script of character Gift is

On the left is character Display (Post 329), on the right is character Harvest/Abundance (Post 317), meaning a lot of food. In the ancient, food was the most important, and most valuable gift. People take the food to put on table: it is gift for you. 

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to big script with some changes, the right top is not the same as that in the big script if you see carefully. The top part in the small seal script is not like the ears of rice anymore. The most likely is that people just wanted to right fast, so they simplified the strokes but lost the original pictography.

The clerical script of the character is 

The left part changes to make writing easier, which is called Display Radical, meaning that the character is related to something with Display. The right part is similar to old scripts.

The song typeface for traditional character is

禮

Similar to the clerical script.

The song typeface for simplified character is

礼

The right changed to a hook. I have no idea where it is from.

Its Pinyin is Li3.

The original meaning of the character is Gift, it is still the main meaning of the character right now. However, it has other popular meanings: etiquette, courtesy, ceremony, etc.