Amazing Chinese Characters (566) Dry - 燥

 The big seal script of character Dry is

The left is character Fire, the right is character Noise. The sun is like fire toasting the earth, the air is very dry, making people feel restless, same as disturbed by bird's noise. The character is different from another character Dry - 干 (Post 395), which means "dry every where especially the soil". 

The small seal script of the character is

The left is Fire, the right is Noise, 

The clerical script of the character is 

The left is Fire, the right is Noise. 

The pinyin of the character is Zao4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (565) Exercise - 操

 The big seal script of character Exercise is

The left is character Hand, the right is character Noise. When many people do exercise together, such as the soldiers morning exercise, big noise could be made.

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of the character is

The left is Hand Radical, the right is character Noise.

Its Pinyin is Cao1.

The character has other meanings: Hold, Grip, Grasp, etc.

Amazing Chinese characters (564) Bathe - 澡

  The big seal script of character Bathe is

The left is character Water, the right is character 喿.

Let's see the Liu Shu Tong script for the character Bathe (Liu Sho Tong is a collection of all old scripts not collected in formal collections)

The top is character Nest (Post 45), the bottom is character Water in horizontal. The above script may mean that the bathe of birds when it is raining. 

We can see that a bird goes into a water in the summer with its head, or swings temporarily, then shakes off the water from its body, repeat many times. The character means a bathe like that: spraying some water on body, and dry with tower; not the normal bathe in which the body is soak in water.

Back to the big seal script at the beginning, the right part is more like a nest with a mouth, meaning a bird is spraying water in its body to have a light bathe.

The small seal script of character Bathe is

The left is Water, the right is Noise, not Nest.

The clerical script of the character is

The left is Three Drop Radical, the right is character Noise.

Its Pinyin is Zao3.

There is another character Bathe - 浴 (Post 230), which is "soak in water" bathe from the beginning. The character 澡 here was not "soak in water" bathe 3000+ years ago, but it is same as normal bathe right now. The two are exchangeable. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (563) Noise - 噪

The shell bone script of character Noise is

The top has three character Mouth, the rest is character Wood, here means tree. The character means that there are many birds on tree, opening their mouths and making noise.

The big seal script of the character Noise is

The left is character Mouth, the right is not character Noise, the top is not three-mouth, but one mouth on the nest. But the left Mouth Radical emphasizes that it is the mouth that makes noise.

Why is the big seal script not keeping the form of shell bone script? It may be due to the shell bone script had been used in many compound characters without meaning of noise. People made a new character to keep the meaning of noise by adding a Mouth Radical on the left.

The clerical script of character Noise is

The left is Mouth, the right is similar to its shell bone script. The top right is like character Appreciate - 品（Post 339), but is not that character. The lines connecting the three mouth are missing, making it look like character Appreciate.

Its Pinyin is Zao4.

The 喿 was not used long time ago, I guess at least two thousands years ago. But it is still listed in traditional song typeface, but not in simplified song typeface. It was replaced by 噪. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (562) Ancient City - 郭

 The big seal script of character Ancient City is

The left is character Enjoy - 享 (Post 389), 

The top is a multi-storey building, which was very rare in ancient time, only Kings could have. The bottom is circle of a place where many people live together. In the character Ancient City, the left has two buildings, one upward, another downward, the circle between is the city, which means that there are many this kind buildings. Some people believe that the multi-storey buildings are to towers on city wall - the circle.

The right part is character Town or Village - 邑 (Post 561). 

The character Ancient City means that there is a place where many people live together, more than Town or Village, because there are many multi-storey buildings.

The small seal script of the character is

Some similarity to big seal script.

The clerical script of the character is 

Changed a lot. the left is character Enjoy. The left bottom is character Child, and top is the left top of small seal script, which should be a building. The right part is called Radical Right Ear, a simplified character Town or Village, but not having any similarity. It is possible from cursive script.

The pinyin of the character is Guo1.

The Town or Village meaning of the character has almost disappeared right now, only exist in proverb, or ancient writing Chinese. It is often used as a popular family name today.

Amazing Chinese Characters (561) Town or Village - 邑

The shell bone script of character Town or Village is

What is the top square? Some people believe that it is city wall, others think that it is just a person's head. I prefer the latter. The character means a place where many people live together, either village or small town, which normally has no city wall.

The bronze script of the character is

The bottom changed a lot, but it is a person's body.

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to bronze script.

The clerical script of the character is

Similar to small seal script.

The character was replaced about two thousands years ago by other characters in the meaning of Village or Town. It is still used in proverbs with the same meaning in writing Chinese, but not used often as a single character, and no use in oral Chinese now.

Its Pinyin is Yi4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (560) Spherical - 团（團）

The big seal script of character Spherical is

The inside 

is character Specialty, original meaning is a hand (bottom) holds a spindle for spinning). 
The outside is big box holding the spindle, which is spherical shape.
The small seal script of character Spherical is

Similar to shell bone script.
The clerical script of the character is

Some similarity to small seal script, the difference is that the lines in small seal script are rounded, but straight in clerical script.
The traditional song typeface of character Spherical is

Same as clerical script.
The simplified song typeface of character Spherical is

The inside is character 才 – Talent, very strange replacement for 專. It is not only no similarity on the appearance, but not in the meaning too, just reduced the number of strokes. It is bad simplification.
 The pinyin of the character is Tuan2.

Amazing Chinese Characters（559) Village - 屯

 The shell bone script of character village is

A seed is seedling, the top is the sprout, the bottom is the new root. The original meaning of the character is seedling. 

The bronze script of the character is

The sprout on the top with a black dot, which is an indicator to show the emphasizing area: the top of sprout (not the root, not the side sprout), the most exuberant one. 

The big seal script of the character is

Very similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to bronze and big seal scripts except the horizontal line on the top, which is from the dot of the bronze or big seal script because there is no dot in small seal script, all dots are lines, vertical or horizontal.

The clerical script of the character is

Similar to small seal script.

The pinyin of the character is Tun2.

The meaning of the character changed to village, maybe due to the fact that the seedling is only popular in village.

There is another character Village - 乡（鄉）,  which is much bigger area of countryside, may include many villages, also is the standard term for village used nationwide. The character 屯 is only used in some area of northern China, not used in southern China.

Amazing Chinese Characters (558) Specialty - 专（專）

 The bronze script of character Specialty is

The top is a spindle, the bottom is a hand. Ancient people make textile linen with spinning spindle, which is a specialty, a very skillful job.

The big seal script of character Specialty is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of character Specialty is

Similar to big seal script except the bottom part with extra horizontal short line, but still means Hand.

The clerical script of character Specialty is

The top is similar to older scripts, the bottom is character Inch -  寸, original means Hand.

The traditional song typeface is

Same as the clerical script.

The simplified song typeface is

It is from cursive script, completely lost the original pictography of the character.

The Pinyin of the character is Zhuan1.

Amazing Chinese Characters (557) At that time or Pawn - 当（當）

 The big seal script of character At that time or Pawn is

The top is character Still - 尚（Post 556), the bottom is character Rice Field - 田（Post 3). The character has multiple meanings: 1, At that time; 2, Should, Serve as, etc; 3, Pawn, Equal, etc.

The second category means following the rules of person behavior; the third category means following the rules when trading or pawning rice field. How is first one related to the original meaning of character is unknown.

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of the character is

Similar to older scripts.

The traditional song typeface is

Same as clerical script.

The simplified song typeface is

Which is from cursive script, The cursive script of the character is

but simplified further, totally lost the the pictography.

The pinyin of the character is Dang1.

Why do it have unrelated meanings? I just guess that the character was added an extra meaning at very early time when there were not enough characters available to be used.

Amazing Chinese Characters (556) Still - 尚 (尙）

 The bronze script of character Still is

The top is character Eight - 八（Post 156), which means Divide, here it means details. The middle 门 alike means big house or building. The bottom is character Mouth - 口, which means "Door" here. Why is not Mouth? because we discussed character Direction - 向 (Post 415), which means a house with a door. The character Still here is formed with 八 (the top) and 向 (the bottom). Here 八 - Divide means making the hall wider and bigger. Therefore, this character means very big hall. 

I think that in the ancient time, 尚 is a big building or palace where King and top minsters discussed policies, and rules. They issued some new rules, which are ready to execute but not yet. 

The big seal script of character Still is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of character Still is

The top changed from 八 to 小, I don't know why. It is baseless to me. The bottom is similar to older scripts.

The clerical script of character Still is

Similar to small seal script.

The Pinyin of character Still is Shang4.

The character now means Still, Yet, something should happen but not happened yet, highly possible will happen. I don't know why it changed to that meaning.

The simplified character is 尚, however, there is another one 尙 in traditional song typeface with same meaning. Simplification eliminated the 尙, which is good.