飞 | fēi

In Mandarin Chinese, 飞 (Pinyin: fēi 🔊) is a word of many meanings. As a verb, it means “to fly”, “to flutter”, or “to evaporate”. It also could be an adjective for “fast”, “unexpected”, “unfounded”, or an adverb “very” or “extremely”.

飞 is a simplified form of the traditional hanzi 飛. If you look carefully, you’ll see that the traditional character contains two 飞 bits, one on top of the other. Uncle Hanzi writes “a flying bird with long neck and big wings” without specifying explicitly whether he refers to 飛 or 飞. I see a long neck (and a long beak) and not-so-big wings in the simplified character.

Some compounds of 飞 include

• 飞 + 天 = 飞天 (fēitiān): to fly in the sky; to travel into space
• 飞 + 星 = 飞星 (fēixīng): meteor; shooting star
• 飞 + 鸟 = 飞鸟 (fēiniǎo): flying bird
• 飞 + 鱼 = 飞鱼 (fēiyú): flying fish
• 飞 + 鼠 = 飞鼠 (fēishǔ): flying squirrel; bat
• 飞 + 虫 = 飞虫 (fēichóng): flying insect

In Japanese, 飛 is an affix that confers the meaning of flight or speed. We’ve already seen 飛 in that famous haiku:

古池や 蛙飛こむ 水の音 芭蕉 Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto The old pond; A frog jumps in, — The sound of the water. Bashō (Translated by R.H. Blyth)

Here, the frog 蛙 (kawazu) not just enters こむ (komu) the water: it leaps in 飛こむ (tobikomu).

More photos related to flight, calligraphy and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

蛛 | zhū

In Mandarin Chinese, 蛛 (Pinyin: zhū 🔊) means “spider”. According to Wiktionary, 蛛 is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 虫 (“insect”) and phonetic 朱 (zhū), while Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters that “the conceptual influence lent here by 朱 is uncertain”.

There are not too many compounds of 蛛. One of them is 蜘蛛 (zhīzhū 🔊) which is another word for spider. In Chinese, the 蜘 part is not used on its own; in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese 蜘 also means “spider”. So does the reduplicated form, 蛛蛛 (zhūzhu). A compound of 蛛 with 网 “net”, 蛛网 (zhūwǎng), means “spider web”.

In Japanese, 蜘蛛 is pronounced kumo (🔊).

蜘蛛何と 音を何と鳴く 秋の風 芭蕉 Kumo nan to oto wo nan to naku aki no kaze With what voice, And what song would you sing, spider, In this autumn breeze? Bashō (Translated by R.H. Blyth)

More photos related to spiders, calligraphy and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

蝶 | dié

In Mandarin Chinese, 蝶 (Pinyin: dié 🔊 or tiě 🔊) is a word for butterfly.

According to Wiktionary, 蝶 is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 虫 (“insect”) and phonetic 枼 which, in turn, is a compound of 世 and 木. The folk etymologist in me wants to see an insect (i.e. butterfly) flying toward a flower or something, but it seems that the 枼 part is indeed purely phonetic: too many words with completely different meanings that include the radical 枼 are pronounced dié, for example 惵, 喋, 堞, 楪, 揲... On the other hand, Lawrence J. Howell in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters adds a bit more semantics:

枼 is a depiction of three leaves growing from the top of a tree, suggesting slight objects (thin, flat leaves) piled on each other.

And so,

枼 <...> (thin/flat/slight) + 虫 insect → (thin-winged) butterfly.

There are not too many compounds of 蝶. One of them is 蝴蝶 (húdié 🔊) which is another word for butterfly; the 蝴 part is not used on its own.

In Japanese, 蝶 is pronounced chō (🔊). 蝶々さん, Chōchō-san, better known in the West as Cio-Cio-san, is the name of the protagonist of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, where suffix san is a honorific and 蝶蝶, or 蝶々, chōchō, is just a reduplication of 蝶. It still means “butterfly”.

This beautiful haiku by Issa starts and ends with 蝶:

蝶が來て つれて行きけり 庭の蝶 一茶 Chō ga kite tsurete yuki keri niwa no chō A butterfly came, And flew off With a butterfly in the garden. Issa (Translated by R.H. Blyth)

More photos related to butterflies and calligraphy @ Shutterstock.

蛋 | dàn

In Mandarin Chinese, 蛋 (Pinyin: dàn 🔊) is a noun for “egg” and, by extention, for any egg-shaped object, such as testicle.

Juan Eduardo Cirlot wrote in his Dictionary of Symbols:

A great many prehistoric tombs in Russia and Sweden have revealed clay eggs which had been left there as emblems of immortality. In the language of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the determinative sign of the egg represents potentiality, the seed of generation, the mystery of life. This meaning persisted among the alchemists, who added explicitly the idea that it was the container for matter and for thought. In this way was the transition effected from the concept of the egg to the Egg of the World, a cosmic symbol which can be found in most symbolic traditions — Indian, Druidic, etc. The vault of space came to be known as an Egg, and this Egg consisted of seven enfolding layers — betokening the seven heavens or spheres of the Greeks. The Chinese believe that the first man had sprung from an egg dropped by Tien from heaven to float upon the primordial waters. The Easter egg is an emblem of immortality which conveys the essence of these beliefs. The golden egg from which Brahma burst forth is equivalent to the Pythagorean circle with a central point (or hole). But it was in Egypt that this symbol most frequently appeared. Egyptian naturalism — the natural curiosity of the Egyptians about the phenomena of life — must have been stimulated by the realization that a secret animal-growth comes about inside the closed shell, whence they derived the idea, by analogy, that hidden things (the occult, or what appears to be non-existent) may actively exist. In the Egyptian Ritual, the universe is termed the ‘egg conceived in the hour of the Great One of the dual force’. The god Ra is displayed resplendent in his egg. An illustration on a papyrus, in the Œdipus Ægyptiacus of Kircher, shows the image of an egg floating above a mummy, signifying hope of life hereafter. The winged globe and the beetle pushing its ball along have similar implications.

Wiktionary says that 蛋 is a phono-semantic compound of phonetic 延 (yán 🔊, abbreviated to 疋) and semantic 虫. By now you got used to the fact that the radical 虫 can be found in the name of almost every creature that is neither a bird nor a barnyard animal, so why not an egg then. Still, given its cosmological importance, one may wonder why the Chinese did not use a more egg-like symbol for it, say ⬭ or ⬯.

Compounds of 蛋 include

• 鸡 + 蛋 = 鸡蛋 (jīdàn 🔊): chicken egg
• 下 + 蛋 = 下蛋 (xiàdàn): to lay eggs
• 蛋 + 黄 = 蛋黄 (dànhuáng): egg yolk
• 蛋 + 白 = 蛋白 (dànbái): egg white
• 白 + 蛋白 = 白蛋白 (báidànbái): albumin

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

蛙 | wā

In Mandarin Chinese, 蛙 (Pinyin: wā 🔊) is a word for frog.

According to Wiktionary, 蛙 is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 虫 (“insect; creature”) and phonetic 圭 which, in turn, is a duplication of our old friend 土. Now, English speakers think the frog goes “ribbit” (🔊). But this is only because of Baja California chorus frog who happen to live near Hollywood. For Dutch, frogs go “kwaak kwaak”, for Russians — “ква-ква” and for Chinese — 呱呱 (wā wā). If you remember “wā wā”, you’ll remember “wā” too.

Does 蛙 look like a frog? Not really, not to me. Look, here’s a frog:

And here’s a sailboat pursuing, er, two smaller boats:

In Japanese, 蛙 is pronounced kaeru (🔊) or, in poetry, kawazu. Here’s probably the most famous haiku ever:

古池や 蛙飛こむ 水の音 芭蕉 Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto The old pond; A frog jumps in, — The sound of the water. Bashō

I used the classic translation by R.H. Blyth; if you don’t like it, there are at least thirty-one others.

More photos related to frogs, calligraphy and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

甲 | jiǎ

In Mandarin Chinese, 甲 (Pinyin: jiǎ 🔊) is a noun that means “armour”, “shell”, or “nail”. It is also the first of ten celestial stems and, by extension, means “first”.

Uncle Hanzi says that 甲 is a “pictograph of natural crack joints in the underside of a turtle-shell”. On the other hand, Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:

Originally, a depiction of objects being pressed down, suggesting “press down on objects in containing them” → armor; helmet; shell. From the bronzeware inscription style onward, however, the character becomes a depiction of a hard, seed-bearing husk. First in a series and first calendar sign are borrowed meanings.

Compounds of 甲 include

• 龟 + 甲 = 龟甲 (guījiǎ): tortoise shell
• 甲 + 虫 = 甲虫 (jiǎchóng 🔊): beetle
• 甲 + 基 = 甲基 (jiǎjī): (chemistry) methyl group
• 马 + 甲 = 马甲 (mǎjiǎ): corset; camouflage; online pseudonym

More photos related to shells @ Shutterstock.

蛇 | shé

In Mandarin Chinese, 蛇 (Pinyin: shé 🔊) means “snake”. The Snake is one of the twelve-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac and is associated with the earthly branch 巳.

According to Wiktionary, 蛇 is a phono-semantic compound of “semantic” 虫 (“the character originally represented a type of venomous snake ... 虫 eventually came to represent worms and insects as well”) and “phonetic” 它 (now pronounced tā, so you’d never guess). 它 also originally meant “snake”, so 蛇 is like “snake snake”.

More photos related to snakes, zodiac and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

虫 | chóng

In Mandarin Chinese, 虫 (Pinyin: chóng) is a word for “insect”, “bug”, “worm”, or, in Old Chinese, an animal in general. A compound of 大 and 虫, 大虫 (dàchóng), means “large insect”, but also has another, “literary or dialectal, euphemistic” meaning: “tiger”. (Good thing they eventually came up with less ambiguous 虎.)

According to Wiktionary,

The character originally represented a type of venomous snake, while the derivative 蟲 represented worms and insects (or insect-like things). 虫 eventually came to represent worms and insects as well, and the character 虺 was created to represent the original meaning.

To me, 虫 on its own looks like a pictogram of a flying (from left to right) insect, and nothing like a snake. It is considered to be a ”simplified” form of the traditional character 蟲, however, it seems more logical to consider 蟲 a “complicated” form of 虫. After all, 蟲 is just a pile of three 虫s. Another meaning of 蟲, “plague of insects”, makes perfect sense then.

虫 is also a radical that is found in many other hanzi. We saw it before as a part of 風, the traditional form of 风 (fēng). This is because “Ancient Chinese thought insects appear with wind”.

More photos related to insects and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

风 | fēng

In Mandarin Chinese, 风 (Pinyin: fēng 🔊) means “wind”.

风 is a simplified version of the traditional character 風. Uncle Hanzi derives this latter character from phonetic 凡 (fán) “sail” and semantic 虫 “insect” or “snake”. (The meaning of 凡 has little to do with a sail, but there is a similarly-looking 帆 which is also pronounced as fán and means “a sail” or “a sailboat”.) 虫 (chóng) means “insect”. According to Wiktionary, “Ancient Chinese thought insects appear with wind”. So far so good, but then it goes, “Insects refer to any kind of animal, such as tigers”. Maybe not too straightforward way to memorise it for a modern learner. Forget the insects: you still can think of 风 as depicting a sail, a flag, or, as Tamara has suggested, a curtain moving with the wind.

A combination of 风 with 水 results in 风水 (fēng shuǐ) which is a name of a famous Chinese philosophical system, Feng shui.

More photos of wind and sea glass @ Shutterstock.