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.