Amazing Chinese Characters (455) Order from King or Emperor - 旨

 Shell bone script of character Order from King or Emperor

The top is character Person (Post 57), the bottom is character Mouth (Post 16). A person makes order by his mouth. 

There is another character Order - 令 (Post 152),

The top is a mouth talking downward to a person kneeling down. 

Both mean Order, but the one we discuss in this post is the Order from King or Emperor, because no one else can only use 令. not 旨. which is used only by King or Emperor. In Google, almost all English explanations are Order or Decree or Purpose, all are wrong. They may be right or partially right only the character is used in a word of combination of two characters. 

I need to point out that the Dictionary of Pictography - 《象形字典》explains that the top is a spoon or fork, the bottom is Mouth eating, which is nothing to do which Order. I think the explanation is wrong.

The bronze script of the character is

The top is a person, the bottom is character Say - 曰 (Post 341). A person makes (Says) order.

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to the bronze and big seal scripts.

The clerical script of the character is

The top become 匕 - Dragger （Post 453), which most of time means Person, not Dragger. Here is Person. The bottom is character Say - 曰.

The song typeface of the character is

旨 

Almost same as clerical script.

The Pinyin of the character is Zhi3.