Random Character of the Day

[Tomsima]

蠱

Spoiler

gǔ, a legendary venomous insect. It came up in the word 蠱惑 in a translation I was working on yesterday. After speaking to a friend about what 蠱 exactly was, it all came flooding back, I actually learnt and then obviously forgot this character while watching 天龍八部 (if youve seen it, I'm sure you'll know the poisonous insect im talking about; if you havent, go watch 胡軍版本 its great fun). 

 

[Tomsima]

麾

Spoiler

huī, Original meaning: flag or banner. Came up in a game in the word 麾下, those under one's command. 

 

[Tomsima]

瘗

 

Spoiler

yì, bury. It came up in the name of an old work of calligraphy, 瘗鹤铭

 

[Tomsima]

櫫

Spoiler

zhū, small wooden post for tying up animals. This appeared in a doctoral dissertation from a Taiwan university in the word 楬櫫. The word was new for me, and appears not to be frequently used on the mainland. Nonetheless, I thought the character was pretty interesting, as the top clearly serves as the phonetic, but also takes part in the overall semantic idea of 豬+木. Check out here for more information if you're interested.

 

 

[Shelley]

Well interestingly enough Zhongwen popup dictionary translates this as Zelkova acuminta a type of plant = http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/record/tro-50127524

and doesn't mention the wooden tether.

 

After further investigation is seems Pleco lists it as wooden picket for tethering animals but only for literary use, and the plant in everyday use.

 

楬櫫 together is to disclose or to announce.

 

[Tomsima]

interesting to see it listed as the plant type rather than wooden post/tether...

Here is the usage I saw 楬櫫 come up in:

 

"孔恩所楬櫫科學研究者工作環境的轉換"

(the transformation of the scientific researcher's environment as [indicated/identified] by Kuhn) 

[Tomsima]

愨

Spoiler

què, it appears to mean 'honest', but this is an important character in the place name 夏愨道 or 'Harcourt Rd' in HK. It came up in this article on recent protests in HK, and I confess I really should know this character. I've probably seen it a lot in the past and never bothered to actively learn it after a quick dictionary check. It appears in the article with the simplified 悫, and can also be written using an even fuller version of the traditional above, 慤.

 

[Tomsima]

靨

Spoiler

 

yè, also known as 面靨, this is the character for the 酒窩, or dimple, makeup dots that can be found on paintings and sculptures of Tang dynasty women. 

 

 

 

[Tomsima]

盥
 

Spoiler

 

guàn - entry from ABC dictionary:

Quote

wash (hands/face) From two hands ( and ), 水 (shuǐ) ‘water’ and 皿 (mǐn) ‘bowl’. “水 water in a 皿 bowl and two hands (fingers)” —Karlgren. Presumably 盥 guàn is cognate to 灌 guàn ‘pour’.

Bumped into this character watching 武林外傳 - 屁先生 'Simpson' in episode 68 uses the word '盥洗' to describe going to wash his hands after eating a chicken leg. Seems like this word is actually pretty common in formal language, so must just be another one of those lesser-seen characters that my brain has switched off and decided not to learn before.

 

 

[Jim]

2 hours ago, Tomsima said:

Seems like this word is actually pretty common in formal language, so must just be another one of those lesser-seen characters that my brain has switched off and decided not to learn before.

Yes, sure I've seen it in older washroom signs (our old student dorms years back for one), perhaps as a bit of pseudo-sophistication, which is why I've definitely looked it up before.

[Tomsima]

Todays new character is perhaps too vulgar to give an explanation for, but it was popping up all the time on the livestreams from Hong Kong today. Suffice it to say, this character is specific to Cantonese.

 

閪

[Tomsima]

鴇

 

Spoiler

bao3, appears in 老鴇, 'madam of the brothel, brothel keeper', ie. the head lady in charge of all the girls at a brothel. It got shouted at 老闆 by one of the employee guys on the till at my local tiny Chinese supermarket, to much chuckling from those in the queue (except for me of course, who was frantically trying to feign understanding while cycling through every third tone 'bao' I could think of) 

 

[Tomsima]

曱甴

 

Spoiler

gaat6 jaat6 (SL) means cockroach in Cantonese, seems to be the equivalent of 蟑螂, interesting couple of characters that i noticed appearing in comments on videos about the riots in hk

 

[Shelley]

That is a really nice pair of characters.

Appealing like 凹凸 , are there any more pairs like this?

[Tomsima]

i can think of 孑孓 and 乒乓

[Jim]

忐忑

[Tomsima]

箸

 

Spoiler

zhu4, the original character for 筷子,  from a chat with a friend about interesting facts that they learned from listening to 马未都

 

[Tomsima]

鞬 

 

Spoiler

 

jian1, a quiver holster for use on horseback, appeared in the word 弓鞬 (as to be expected I suppose)

 

I love these old military equipment characters, they always look so complex, yet break down in such a simple way, its almost always just 革 + phonetic component. 

 

 

[Tomsima]

襠
 

Spoiler

dang1, appears in the word 襠部, meaning 'the crotch area'. Word was used in a stand-up style speech by a comedian as a euphemism.

 

[roddy]

See also 开裆裤。