Sinograph Addenda · Signs

do

Namedo
Readswéi
Meansto do, to make; to act as; for
Taught in07 · Doing and being

Where it comes from

The old form draws a hand leading an elephant — work itself, in one picture — and the language borrowed it for its plainest verb: do, make, act as. Rank eight of the corpus. Read wéi as the verb; read wèi when it means “for the sake of.” Taught in the doing-and-being chapter.

How to remember it

A claw at the top, four small feet at the bottom: what is left of the hand leading the elephant — the heaviest doing the script ever drew.

In the wild

Laozi 63. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR5c0057:063:1a · license: attribution.