Amazing Chinese Characters (801) Several/How Many? - 几（幾）

The bronze script of character Several (幾）/How Many is

The top left is character Silk (Post 36). 

Which are spindles here. 

The right one is character Dagger-Axe (Post 80).

Here is not Dagger-Axe, but Loom. 

The small one in the bottom is character Person (Post 37).

The character original meaning is "People use yarn to weave cloth". It changed to "How many?", and "Several". Probably because, the loom was big, operated by two or more people. They asked "How many spindles do we need?" often, and "several", "a few" are the answers. Therefore it means "how many?", or "several", both are single digit. It is unreasonable to ask an adult "你幾岁？“, because adult is at least 18 years old, much bigger than 10. "你幾岁？“ could only be used in asking a child who is less than 10. 

The small seal script of character Several/How Many is

The top are spindles, the left bottom is person, the rest is loom. 

The clerical script of character Several/How Many is

Some similarity to small seal script, the top are spindles, the loom middle stroke is extended up in between the two spindles, the bottom left person becomes 人.

The song typeface of character Several/How Many is

Similar to clerical script.

Pinyin of the character is Ji3.

Let's see another version of character Several/How Many. 

The big seal script of character Several (几) /How Many is

a small (tea) table. It has no other meaning. The Several/How Many meanings were added on it when simplification of Chinese characters in 1950s in mainland China. The purpose of doing so it to eliminate the character 幾. 

The small seal script of character Several/How Many is 

Similar to big seal script.

The song typeface of character Several /How Many is

The strokes extend on both side, the right one is even curved up, which is from standard script for a better looking.

The Pinyin of character 几 is Ji3, same as that of 幾. 

I have to point out that 幾, and 几 have existed for at least 2500+ years, each had its own meaning. The simplification in 1950s, added the all meanings of 幾 onto 几，then abandoned 幾. Right now, in simplified Chinese, 幾 is disappeared, 几 means "Tea table/small table, several/how many". But in traditional Chinese used in Tai Wan, both exist, and keep each original meanings.