This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
午
In brief: the world beginning to deviate from the Fa: yin and yang begin to reverse
Common reading
The seventh of the earthly branches, paired with the heavenly stems to count years. Erya: “When Taisui is in 午 the year is called Dunyang.” Used for months: the fifth lunar month. Shuowen: “In the fifth month yin qi opposes (午) yang and breaks through the earth.” Used for days (Zuozhuan: “the day gengwu”) and hours (eleven to one o’clock; noon, twelve o’clock in the day: lunch, midday meal, midnight). To go against: interchangeable with 牾, in ancient times the same as 忤 and 迕, to oppose, to turn against.
Design reading
The top horizontal of 干 with a left-falling stroke added on the left. The top horizontal of 干 stands for the Fa, with a 十 below: the sense of the Fa as a shield protecting the world entire. The left-falling stroke at the upper left shows the world beginning to deviate from the Fa, which gives the sense of going against (忤), turning against. The sun rises all morning until noon and begins to descend after noon: the hour of 午 is the moment when yin and yang begin to reverse. So the form of a world beginning to deviate from the Fa is used for 午, the moment yin and yang begin to reverse.
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.