Amazing Chinese characters (419) Ugly - 丑（醜）

 The shell bone script of current character Ugly is

Which is a hand with fingers trying to twist something, twist is the original meaning, so used "current character Ugly".

The bronze script of the character is

Similar to the shell bone script.

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to older scripts.

The small seal script of the character is

The fingers connected by a vertical line, but we don't know why.

The clerical script of the character is

 

The curve down becomes a horizontal line, a typical clerical script stroke.

The song typeface of the character is

丑

Its Pinyin is Chou3.

The twist meaning of 丑 has been disappeared long time ago, people added a Hand Radical to create new character 扭 to represent the twist. 丑 has been used in Chinese Zodiac for long time.

So character 丑 didn't mean Ugly for thousands years.

Let's see the character of Ugly from beginning.

The shell bone script of original character Ugly is

The left is a liquor jar, the right is character Ghost (Post 71). Ancient Chinese considered that drunkard is ugly.

The bronze script of the character is

 The left is liquor jar, the right is Ghost who holds the jar.

The small seal script of the character is

The left is character Liquor Jar - 酉 (Post 104), the right is character Ghost - 鬼 (Post 71).

The clerical script of the character is

Similar to small seal script.

The song typeface of the character is

醜

Which is traditional character.

Its Pinyin is Chou3, exactly same as 丑 above.

We now know 醜, and 丑 , with different meanings, both have been traditional characters for 3500+ years, 

In 1950s, simplification of Chinese characters, the experts decided to combine the two into one: 丑, and 醜 is abolished.

People now think that 丑 is simplified character, and 醜 is traditional character, which is wrong. Both are traditional characters, simplification makes 醜 disappeared, and 丑 takes all meanings of both characters: combination of two characters into one. 丑 had never had meaning of Ugly before 1950s, but right now it is well known that 丑 means Ugly.