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枼

yè
noun

Meanings

  1. 1 (archaic) leaf — original form of 葉 / 叶
  2. 2 (archaic) thin wooden tablet; a generation, = 世
  3. 3 now mainly a phonetic stem inside compound characters

Tips

history
Pictograph: a tree (木) with leaves spreading at the top (世-shape). Original of 葉 (leaf); the modern 葉 simply added the 艹 grass radical to make the meaning explicit. Through borrowing, 枼 also stood for 世 (generation), since both were read close to *lep / *lap in Old Chinese.
usage
Now seen only inside compounds — but very productive. As a phonetic stem 枼 supplies the 'flat / thin / wide' family: 蝶 (butterfly, thin wings), 碟 (small dish), 谍 (spy, thin tablet of secret writing), 牒 (official document tablet), 喋 (chatter), 楪 (wooden plate).

Components

radical
木 mù
tree; wood
Bottom is 木, the tree radical (Kangxi #75) — a canonical pictograph of a tree with branches above and roots below. Here it grounds the leaves: 枼 literally pictures 'leaves on a tree'. The same radical heads the wider phonetic family 蝶 butterfly, 碟 dish, 谍 spy, 牒 official tablet.
pictograph
世 shì
leaves spreading; generation (graphic)
Top is the 世-shape, here functioning pictorially as leaves fanning out from a branch — three upright sprouts joined by a horizontal twig. The same graph later took on the unrelated 'generation' meaning by phonetic loan. In 枼 it sits as the leaf-canopy above the tree below — the original drawing of foliage on a stem.

Stroke Order

枼 yè