This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
韋
In brief: a person turned away from the Fa above and below
Common reading
The simplified form of 韋. Phono-semantic: from 舛 (chuǎn), which depicts two feet facing opposite ways, meaning to go against; with 囗 as the sound. 韋 is the early form of 違 (wéi, “to violate”). Original sense: to go against. Shuowen: “韋 means back to back; from 舛, with 囗 as the sound. The 韋 of hides can bind what is bent and twisted, back to back, so it was borrowed for leather.” Zilin: “韦 means soft leather.” The oracle-bone and bronze forms are from 囗 with two to four 止; 囗 stands for a walled town, depicting people encircling it: it is the early form of 圍 (wéi, “to surround”). It was later borrowed for leather and is now mostly used as a surname.
Design reading
The top of 韋 is 五 missing a horizontal: the Five Phases lacking the way of heaven, turned away from the Fa. The 口 in the middle can mean a person; at the bottom, 㐄 is the same as 午 and also carries the sense of turning away from the Fa. A person turned away from the Fa above and below is 韋.
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.