Amazing Chinese Characters (453) Dragger - 匕

 The shell bone script of character Dragger is

It is similar to character Person (Post 37)

The difference is the forearm up in character Dragger, which may be a dragger or short knife held by the person.

Also it is a shell bone script for character 妣 - a traditional character meaning Mother, who does housework. It may be the Mother who holds a dragger or short knife as a tool for house working. There is another explanation: The ancient dragger is like spoon, 

which is big seal script of character Spoon (Post 207), the dot or short horizontal line is food on the spoon.

The bronze script of the character is

which is a person facing right.

The big seal script of the character is

which looks like a up-down person. 

The small seal script of the character is

which is like character Person

just facing opposite direction.

It is similar to character Knife too (opposite direction)

The clerical script of the character is

which is similar to big seal script, like a person sitting with arm up. It is also like the small seal script of Knife above, but 90 degree counter clockwise turn.  

The song typeface of the character is

匕

Same as clerical script.

The Pinyin of the character is Bi3.

The character has two meanings:

1, the dragger if it is an independent character, or used in word 匕首. 

2, a person if it is part of a character.

How did the character have Dragger meaning? Probably there was some draggers in the ancient time which have this kind shape.

The situation is similar to character 月: which means Moon if it is used as a character, but means Body, or Organ or Meat if it is a part of a character.