Amazing Chinese Characters (507) Longevity - 寿（壽）

 The bronze script of character Longevity is

The top is character Old (Post 288), the middle horizontal S means a road full of twist and turns, two  As are two feet; the bottom 口 is mouth, which may mean Eating or Speaking, the right fork alike is a hand. The character means that an old person who walked long time on roads with turns and twist, did a lot of things (the hand), ate long years meals (mouth), is longevity.

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to older scripts but the Hand disappears, the two As become two Us.  The Hand disappearing is to make the character a little bit uncrowded, the As losing the short line inside may be from the meaning change, the U likes a small turn, the S likes big turns, people may have big changes (big success, or big suffering), and small changes (small achievement, or small upset).

The clerical script of the character is

It cuts the character to parts, the S + Us becomes "工 +  一", really lost all pictography of the character. The bottom are 口 - Mouth, and 寸 - Inch（Hand here).

The simplified song typeface of the character is

which is from cursive script, only the bottom 寸 left, the top a little bit similar to the old scripts, the middle part S, As or Us are totally disappeared.

The Pinyin of the character is Shou4.