In Mandarin Chinese, the literal meaning of 花 (Pinyin: huā 🔊) is “flower”. This word has many figurative meanings, such as “pattern” (floral or otherwise), “pinnacle”, “fireworks”, “a beauty” or “a lady of the night”. 花 forms many compounds, such as 茶花 (cháhuā) “camellia”, 火花 (huǒhuā) “spark” and 水花 (shuǐhuā) “spray”.
The top part of this character, 艹, means “grass”. We’ve seen this radical before as a part of 茶 (chá), “tea”. The bottom part, 化 (huà), in its turn, consists of two 人, i.e. “people”: one upright (亻) and another upside down, together symbolising “change” or “reversal”. According to Ponte Ryūrui,
The bottom part of 花 (化, か, i.e. “action of making something”, “change”) acts purely phonetically, although certain etymology theories suggest to take 化 as “a change” of the state of a plant (blossoming).
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