牛 | niú

In Mandarin Chinese, 牛 (Pinyin: niú 🔊) is a noun that is often translated as “ox” but is a general name for bovine animals (genus Bos, family Bovidae). To be more specific, Chinese uses compounds, for example:

• 公 + 牛 = 公牛 (gōngniú 🔊): bull
• 母 + 牛 = 母牛 (mǔniú 🔊): cow
• 水 + 牛 = 水牛 (shuǐniú 🔊): water buffalo

The Ox is one of the twelve-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac and is associated with the earthly branch 丑. 牛 is also the name of a Chinese constellation located near the European constellation of Capricorn.

Many historical forms of this character look like cow’s head complete with horns and ears. I think gnu (another bovid, although not Bos) is a good mnemonic to remember pronunciation of 牛. For more physics-inclined, 牛 is short for 牛顿 / 牛頓 (Niúdùn), “newton” (SI unit of force). 牛肉 (niúròu 🔊) means “beef”.

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戌 | xū

In Mandarin Chinese, 戌 (Pinyin: xū 🔊) is the eleventh of twelve earthly branches. It corresponds to the Year of the Dog (狗) of the Chinese zodiac; the ninth month; the hour of the Dog (7 pm to 9 pm, “the time when Dogs carry out their duty of guarding the houses”); and the direction 300° (where 0° is north). Its associated “fixed element” is Earth, 土.

The character 狗 refers to any actual dog while 戌 refers to the “zodiac dog”. 戌 is thought to be derived from a pictogram for axe, as can be seen in many historical forms of the character.

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太 | tài

In Mandarin Chinese, 太 (Pinyin: tài 🔊) is used either as an adverb “so”, “too”, “very”, or an adjective meaning “greatest”, “highest”, “noble”, “senior”, “utmost” etc. 太 is extremely common: “is one of the 1000 most commonly used words” in the Collins Chinese Dictionary. There are many compound words starting with 太, such as 太平 (tàipíng) “peace and tranquility”, 太空 (tàikōng) “space”, 太太 (tàitai) “wife”, or 太爷爷 / 太爺爺 (tàiyéye) “great-grandfather”.

By now we’ve got used to the figurative meanings of Chinese numerals (e.g. 万 means “ten thousand” but also “all”, “countless” and so on). Well, in case of 太 the opposite seems to be true as well: in Mainland China, 太 is employed as prefix “tera-” (10¹²), as in 太字节 / 太字節 (tàizìjié) “terabyte”.

Just like now-familiar 犬 “dog”, 太 consists of 大, “big”, modified with a stroke 丶; however in the case of 太 the stroke moved from the presumed “ear” position to somewhere, er, between the “legs”.

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狗 | gǒu

In Mandarin Chinese, 狗 (Pinyin: gǒu 🔊) is a noun that means “dog”. The Dog is one of the twelve-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac and is associated with the earthly branch 戌.

Unfortunately for dog lovers, this word also could be used as an adjective meaning “despicable” or “nasty”. Thus 狗男女 (gǒu nánnǚ) is not a man (男) and a woman (女) innocently walking a dog but a “couple in an illicit love affair”.

According to Uncle Hanzi, 狗 is a phono-semantic compound of phonetic 句 (gōu) and semantic 犭, which itself is a radical form of 犬, archaic or dialectal word for dog.

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犬 | quǎn

In Chinese, 犬 (Pinyin: quǎn) means “dog”. In modern Mandarin, this character is used either as a radical or a part of compound words, for example 牧羊犬 (mùyángquǎn 🔊) “sheepdog” — cf. 牧羊人 (mùyángrén 🔊) “shepherd”.

According to Wiktionary,

Compound characters such as 狇 mostly use the alternative form <犭> at the left of the character. Most represent something to do with dogs or other animals. A smaller proportion (e. g. 狀) use the primary form at the right of the character. A few even show both forms: in 獄 which means “prison” or “litigation”; “words” (言) stand between two dogs to keep them from biting each other.

犬 is written like our other old friend 大, “big”, modified with a dot or a stroke 丶. Wiktionary explains that

the dot is the ear. <That’s why our seaglass 犬 above have got an earring.> In the form 犭, a dog that is up on its hind legs.

Many historical forms of this character look more like a dog standing on its tail.

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亿 | yì

In Mandarin Chinese, 亿 (Pinyin: yì 🔊) is a word for “hundred million” (i.e. 10⁸) as well as, you may have guessed by now, “many”.

Alternative way of expressing the number 100 000 000 is 万万 / 萬萬 (wànwàn), i.e. 万 (wàn) “ten thousand” squared. However, 万万 is more often used as an adverb meaning “absolutely” or “certainly” (not).

亿 is a simplified form of the traditional hanzi 億. It is a phono-semantic compound of 亻, a radical form of our old friend 人 (“people”) and phonetic 意 (yì), which later got replaced by totally unrelated but similarly-sounding 乙 (yǐ). It looks like even in ancient times in China there was a firm association between “people” and “many” although, curiously, some historical forms of this character lack the radical 亻.

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兆 | zhào

In Mandarin Chinese, 兆 (Pinyin: zhào) is a word for “sign” or “omen”. In Mainland China, it also means “million” (i.e. 10⁶), as in 兆瓦 (zhào wǎ), “megawatt”. However, in Japanese the very kanji 兆 stands for “trillion”, i.e. “million million” (this meaning is now obsolete in Mainland China).

Alternative, and less ambiguous, way of expressing the number 10⁶ is 百万 / 百萬 (bǎiwàn), that is, 百 “hundred” by 万 “ten thousand”. Alternative way of expressing the number 10¹² is 亿万 / 億萬 (yìwàn), i.e. 亿 (10⁸) by 万 (10⁴). In Mainland China, 太 (tài) is used as prefix “tera-” (10¹²).

According to Uncle Hanzi, 兆 originally represented “the cracks in oracle bones caused by fire which were thought to be signs (omens) of the future”.

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