Amazing Chinese Characters (621) Periphery - 周（週）

 The shell bone script of character Periphery is

It is a field divided to many small pieces, the dots or short line in the center of each piece are farmers who are working in the field. The character also means Zhou Dynasty, which is famous for its good agricultural industry. People of Zhou Dynasty were good at agricultural industry.

The bronze script of character Periphery is

The top is like character Use (Post 620), here means a field surrounded by fence. The bottom is character Mouth which means "Manage by speech". Agriculture is difficult to manage, which needs many cooperations, manages many people to work together, and fights against flood, or drought, etc. Therefore, the character also means "Thoughtful", "Comprehensive", etc.

The small seal script of character Periphery is

The top is character Use, also similar to bronze script of character Periphery. The bottom is character Mouth.

The clerical script of character Periphery is

Similar to small seal script, but the top left is sealed, the inside vertical line doesn't go through all the horizontal lines.

The Pinyin of the character is Zhou1.

The character has many meanings: periphery, circle, comprehensive, even Week, and Zhou Dynasty. But Periphery is its original meaning.