This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
匕
In brief: a hidden knife
Common reading
The ancient form of 化 (huà, “to transform”) was 匕. Compound-ideative. The oracle-bone form is two people, depicting two people back to back, one upright and one upside down, to show change. Original sense: change, transformation. Shuowen: “匕 means change.” Xu Hao: “匕 and 化 are ancient and modern forms of the same word.” Book of Changes, “Xici”: “Knowing the way of change and transformation.” Yu Fan’s note: “In yang it is called change, in yin transformation: the changes of the four seasons.” Also pictographic: from two 匕, with 匕 also as the sound; the oracle-bone form depicts a spoon. A short sword; in ancient times also a spoon or ladle for food: “The First Ruler was eating and dropped his spoon (匕) and chopsticks.”
Design reading
When the horizontal-turn-hook of 刀 is turned downward, from yang to yin, there is 匕. 匕 (bǐ) sounds like 庇 and 蔽 (bì), with the sense of hiding and concealing. By the method of “sound gives rise to intent”, this figure is given the meaning “a hidden knife”, that is, 匕 for a short knife or short sword. 匕 starts with a vertical going from top to bottom and joins the left-falling stroke: first forming a predestined relationship with someone who has deviated from the Fa; then the bend, horizontal and hook follow: the person with the predestined relationship is saved by the Fa and rises. There is a sense of step by step, of gradually entering, which gives rise to the hidden, short dagger or short sword.
Related characters
About this entry
This entry is taken from the edited manuscript of LI Xutong’s Exploring the Design Mysteries of Chinese Characters. The common reading follows traditional philology, the Shuowen Jiezi and other classics, and modern dictionaries; the design reading recovers the rationale of the character’s formation from the meanings of its strokes, the pairing of yin and yang, and the nine-palace layout, following the New Six Scripts. The premise of the design reading, that the generative mechanism of Chinese characters was designed, is an axiom of this system and differs from the evolutionary account usual in philology; the two readings are kept apart, as surface and depth.