Sinograph Addenda · Signs

season

Name	season
Reads	shí
Means	season, time; timely, at the proper time
Taught in	08 · Already, and at last

Where it comes from

The sun 日 with a sound-carrier at its side — the classic build: time as the sun’s own calendar. 四時 are the four seasons; 以時 “at the proper season” is the classics’ measure of a well-run state; and in the Analects’ first sentence it is the season that makes practice sweet. Taught in the already chapter.

How to remember it

The sun keeps the calendar: season.

In the wild

四時行焉。sì shí xíng yān"the four seasons go their round" — Heaven never says a word, the Master tells his student, and yet the seasons turn and everything grows: the deepest teaching happens without lecturing.

Analects 17.19. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:017:31a · license: attribution.