业
業Meanings
CC-CEDICT
- 1.surname Ye
- 1.line of business
- 2.industry
- 3.occupation
- 4.job
- 5.employment
- 6.school studies
- 7.enterprise
- 8.property
- 9.(Buddhism) karma
- 10.deed
- 11.to engage in
- 12.already
CC-CEDICT · CC BY-SA
Wiktionary
- 1.north; northern
- 2.to be defeated; to fail
- 3.Original form of 背 (bèi, “back; to betray”).
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Etymology
Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意) – two men back to back. Originally meaning “back”; the character 背 (OC *pɯːɡs, *bɯːɡs) refers to the original word. Compare 化, 比, 卬, and 尼. From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *bə(q) (“to carry (on back), shoulder”). The sense of “north” is derived from “back (of body)”: “back” → “to turn the back to; to retreat” → “north”. The ancient Chinese value the southern direction and houses are traditionally oriented along a north–south axis, as evident in the fengshui theory and in the orientation of buildings in Chinese Neolithic sites. North is the direction the back is oriented to when the person is facing south. Compare the graphical origin of 南 (OC *nuːm, “south”) (Sagart, 1988). Note the irregular Mandarin reflex (běi) from Middle Chinese (unlike the Cantonese reflex, whose form is regular). Expected is bo (no tone specified because Mandarin reflex tone is unpredictable for Middle Chinese checked syllables), which is nevertheless noted as a literary variant below (namely, bò).
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Stroke order
Components
Components from cjk-decomp · MIT
More examples & usage (AI)
Derived terms
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA