石 | shí

In Mandarin Chinese, 石 (Pinyin: shí 🔊) means “stone” or “rock”.

Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:

A depiction of a rock or stone beneath a cliff, suggesting a substantial pile of rocks/stones. Sterile/barren is by association (← rocky, barren soil), as is rigid (← rigid objects). Unit of volume is a borrowed meaning.

According to Wiktionary, this hanzi is a pictogram of

a stone beneath a cliff (厂). The cliff was subsequently distorted into 丆. Alternatively, a cave set into the side of a cliff or mountain.

This latter hypothesis can explain why 口 (“mouth” etc.) is a part of 石.

Some compounds of 石 include

• 火 + 石 = 火石 (huǒshí): flint
• 玉 + 石 = 玉石 (yùshí): jade stone; (figuratively) good and bad
• 白 + 云 + 石 = 白云石 (báiyúnshí): dolomite
• 石 + 子 = 石子 (shízǐ): pebble
• 石 + 工 = 石工 (shígōng): stonemason, mason
• 石 + 田 = 石田 (shítián): (literary) uncultivable land; (literary, figuratively) useless thing
• 石 + 油 = 石油 (shíyóu 🔊) ): petroleum

More photos related to rocks and stones @ Shutterstock.

行 | xíng | háng

In Mandarin Chinese, 行 is an interesting word with a number of pronunciations and meanings. As a verb (Pinyin: xíng 🔊), it could mean “to walk”, “to go”, “to move”, “to carry out”, “to execute”, “to perform”, “to be good”, “to work” etc. Some compound words of 行 (xíng) include

• 行 + 云 = 行云 (xíngyún): a drifting cloud
• 行 + 星 = 行星 (xíngxīng): “moving star”, i.e. planet
• 五 + 行 = 五行 (Wǔ Xíng): although widely known as “the Five Elements”, it is better translated as “the Five Movements”; historically, the five planets
• 出 + 行 = 出行 (chūxíng): to set out on a long journey
• 风 + 行 = 风行 (fēngxíng): to spread or proceed quickly; to be in fashion

As a noun (háng), it could mean “profession”, “trade”, “business”, “place”, “line” (of objects) or “row”. Yet as another noun (pronounced either xíng 🔊 or xìng 🔊) it also could mean “behaviour” or “conduct”.

行 is derived from a pictogram of a street intersection. According to Wiktionary,

Originally symmetric, it has been simplified asymmetrically; the left half 彳 is widely used as a radical, while the right half 亍 finds occasional use, and the character can be broken up as 彳 + 亍, though originally it was not a compound.

But how “crossroads” came to represent all those disparate concepts? Lawrence J. Howell in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters provides the following connection:

A depiction of straight and crossing roads extending into the distance → go; movement; procession; road → line (of people) → conduct; do; perform (← carry out an action).

tournez à droite, tournez à gauche, tout droit, carrefour, La maison du Matcha, waka waka //
turn right, turn left, straight ahead, crossroads, The House of Matcha, waka waka

More photos related to roads and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

More adventures of sumo wrestler cat @ My leçons de French.

云 | yún

In Mandarin Chinese, 云 (Pinyin: yún 🔊) means “cloud”.

云 is a simplified form of the traditional character 雲. If you look closely at this latter, you’ll notice that it consists of the character for rain, 雨, on top of the very same 云. (One would think that it is more logical to place rain under the cloud, but here you are.) There is a variety of historical forms of this character, some of them have got rain and some don’t, just like some clouds bring rain and some don’t. Back to 云: the squiggle under two lines can be thought of as depicting a cumulus cloud under stratus clouds.

More photos of clouds and sea glass @ Shutterstock.