Sinograph Addenda · Signs

make

Name	make
Reads	zuò
Means	to make, arise, invent
Taught in	11 · Can, get, want

Where it comes from

The person 亻 on the left does the making; the right half is a sound-loan (an old picture of a collar being cut — the first stroke of any garment) that also whispers “beginning.” To make, to arise, to originate. Taught in the can-get-want chapter.

How to remember it

The thin person at the left does the making; the right half is the tailor’s first cuts on a collar — raw cloth becoming a garment: make.

In the wild

述而不作。shù ér bù zuò"I pass on; I do not invent" — Confucius on his own method: he claims to be a transmitter of the old ways, not an author of new ones.

Analects 7.1 — the sentence continues 信而好古, "trusting and loving the old," read in the old-and-written chapter. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:007:1a · license: attribution.