梅 | méi

In Mandarin Chinese, 梅 (Pinyin: méi 🔊) means “Chinese plum”. 梅 is a phono-semantic compound of phonetic 每 (měi 🔊) and semantic 木 (“tree”).

In Japanese, a simplified form of this character is used, 梅 (as 毎 is a simplified version of 每). The famous haiku by Buson goes:

梅遠近 南すべく 北すべく Ume ochikochi minami subeku kita subeku Plum-blossoms here and there, It is good to go north, Good to go south. (Translated by R.H. Blyth)

The compounds of 梅 include

• 梅 + 花 = 梅花 (méihuā): plum blossom
• 梅 + 子 = 梅子 (méizi): Asian plum (the fruit of Prunus mume)
• 梅 + 雨 = 梅雨 (méiyǔ): the East Asian rainy season (as plums ripen during the rainy season)
• 入 + 梅 = 入梅 (rùméi): beginning of the rainy season
• 松 + 竹 + 梅 = 松竹梅 (sōngzhúméi): the Three Friends of Winter, i.e. pine, bamboo and plum, the plants which do not wither in winter. In Japanese, 松竹梅 (shōchikubai) together are the three auspicious symbols of the Japanese New Year and also a three-rank system (where 松 is top, 竹 is middle and 梅 is bottom).

More photos related to plums, hanzi and calligraphy @ Shutterstock.

松 | sōng

In Mandarin Chinese, 松 (Pinyin: sōng) is a noun meaning “pine”. 松 is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 木 (“wood”) and phonetic 公 (gōng).

Lawrence J. Howell explains in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters that 松 is a

公 open + 木 tree/wood → pine tree (species with “open” fronds).

Some compounds of 松 include

• 松 + 木 = 松木 (sōngmù): pine wood
• 松 + 子 = 松子 (sōngzǐ): pine nut
• 松 + 花 = 松花 (sōnghuā): pine pollen
• 松 + 果 = 松果 (sōngguǒ): pine cone
• 松 + 针 = 松针 (sōngzhēn): pine needle
• 松 + 鼠 = 松鼠 (sōngshǔ): squirrel

A combination of 松 with 山 (mountain), 松山, is a common placename in China (Sōngshān), Japan (Matsuyama) and Korea (Songsan). In Japanese, there is a beautiful word 松風 (松 + 風), matsukaze, which means “wind blowing through pine trees” or “the sound of such winds”. Matsukaze is a famous Noh play by Kan’ami Kiyotsugu (1333—1384).

Incidentally, the symbol above were created using Canarian pine 松针.

More photos related to pines @ Shutterstock.

季 | jì

In Mandarin Chinese, 季 (Pinyin: jì 🔊) is a noun that means “quarter of a year” or “season”. 四季 (sìjì), naturally, refers to four seasons, i.e. 春 (spring), 夏 (summer), 秋 (autumn) and 冬 (winter). Some other compound words of 季 include

• 季 + 风 = 季风 (jìfēng 🔊): monsoon
• 雨 + 季 = 雨季 (yǔjì): rainy season
• 花 + 季 = 花季 (huājì): the flower of one’s youth
• 月 + 季 = 月季 (yuèjì): China rose (Rosa chinensis)

According to Wiktionary, 季 is an ideogrammic compound of 禾 “grain” and 子 “a child”, “a seed” etc.

More photos related to rice, cereals, grains and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

草 | cǎo

In Mandarin Chinese, 草 (Pinyin: cǎo 🔊) is a noun that means “grass”, “straw”, “thatch”, “herb”; by extension, any green plant without bark (or, to use Baldrick’s method of defining things, “not a tree”); “draft”, “sketch” (the scribble that looks like grass?). It also has acquired an euphemistic meaning of the similarly-pronounced vulgar word 肏 (cào).

According to Wiktionary, 草 is a

Phono-semantic compound: semantic 艸 (“grass; plant”) + phonetic 早. Originally referred to 皂, and later borrowed for the “grass” sense, replacing 艸.

艹 is a radical form of 艸. We’ve seen it before in such characters as 茶 “tea” and 花 “flower”.

More photos related to grass, herbs, straw and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

花 | huā

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).

More photos related to flowers, fireworks, hanzi and calligraphy @ Shutterstock.