貨
부수: 貝
획수: 11획
貨 has the meanings goods, coinage and freight.
貨 = 化 + 貝
X = phonetic + semantic
• 化 depicts two people; one right-side-up 亻, and the other up-side-down 匕.
• 貝 depicts a shellfish. Many ancient cultures used seashells as money, and so 貝 represents ‘valuable materials’ such as gold and silk.
Evolution:
貨 = valuable materials ➔ commodities ➔ freight
貨 = valuable materials ➔ coinage
化 = 亻 + 匕
• 亻 depicts a person right-side-up.
• 匕 depicts a person up-side-down.
It is important to note that some scholars take 化 as adding the semantic meaning of ‘change’ to 貨, where the depiction of two people in 化 represents ‘the change from life to death’. Whether this extends to the meaning of ‘exchange’ in 貨 is disputed.
Mnemonic
A semantic role of 化 in 貨 may be disputed, but it makes a good mnemonic for the character. Imagine a marketplace where a seller exchanges 化 goods for seashells 貝 from the buyer.
Vocab
| 財貨 | 재화 | goods; wealth |
| 雜貨 | 잡화 | miscellaneous/mixed goods |
| 寶貨 | 보화 | treasure |
| 手貨物 | 수화물 | hand baggage |
| 百貨店 | 백화점 | department store |
| 硬貨 | 경화 | coinage |
| 鑄貨 | 주화 | coinage |
| 金貨 | 금화 | a gold coin |
| 通貨 | 통화 | currency; money |
| 貨幣 | 화폐 | currency; money |
| 外貨 | 외화 | foreign currency |
| 法貨 | 법화 | legal tender |
| 貨物 | 화물 | freight; cargo |
| 貨車 | 화차 | freight train |
| 貨物船 | 화물선 | freight ship |
Other resources
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Bibliography
— Daum 사전, [s.v. 貨].
— Grant, B.K. (1982). A Guide To Korean Characters: Reading and Writing Hangul and Hanja, [s.v. 1027]. Seoul: Hollym.
— Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters, [s.v. 貨, 化, 亻, 匕, 貝].
— Seely, C., Henshall, K.G., & Fan, J. (2016). The Complete Guide to Japanese Kanji: Remembering and Understanding the 2,136 Standard Japanese Characters, [s.v. 455]. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing.