美 | měi

In Mandarin Chinese, 美 (Pinyin: měi 🔊) has many meanings most of which have something to do with beauty. It could be an adjective for “beautiful”, “pretty”, “good-looking”, “fine”, “delicious” etc.; a verb meaning “to beautify”, “to praise”, “to be pleased with oneself”; or a noun for “beauty”, “beautiful things” or “good deed”.

According to Wiktionary, 美 is a pictogram of

羊 (“goat, sheep or feathers”) + 大 (“big”) — a person with a headdress of feathers or ram’s horn.

Likewise, Uncle Hanzi mentions “possibly a sheep skin hat”. Not exactly the first thing that I associate with beauty, but why not. Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:

The present form combines 大 person standing outstretched and 羊 sheep (originally, goat), but neither of these elements can supply the Old Chinese pronunciation of the character. The phonetically close term conveyed by 㒼 <mán 🔊> <...> suggests that 美, like 㒼, involved the notion “cover the body completely with an animal skin that has its head still attached”. The exact provenance of the meanings beautiful and good is uncertain, as is the identity of the element replaced by 大.

Many compounds of 美 include

• 美 + 好 = 美好 (měihǎo): fine, wonderful, glorious, happy
• 美 + 人 = 美人 (měirén): beautiful woman, lovely lady
• 美 + 甲 “nail” = 美甲 (měijiǎ): manicure and pedicure
• 美 + 容 “to allow” = 美容 (měiróng): to have a beauty treatment
• 美容 + 院 “courtyard” = 美容院 (měiróngyuàn): beauty parlour
• 美 + 工 “work” = 美工 (měigōng): art design

美 is also short for 亚美利加 / 亞美利加 (Yàměilìjiā), which is a phonetic approximation of the word “America”. So make no mistake: 美国 means “American country”, not “beautiful country”.

• 美 + 洲 “continent” = 美洲 (Měizhōu): America (as a continent), Americas
• 中 “centre” + 美洲 = 中美洲 (Zhōngměizhōu 🔊): Central America
• 北 “north” + 美洲 = 北美洲 (Běiměizhōu 🔊): North America
• 南 “south” + 美洲 = 南美洲 (Nánměizhōu): South America
• 美 + 国 “country” = 美国 (Měiguó 🔊): the United States of America

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