Sinograph Addenda · Signs

sun

Name	sun
Reads	rì
Means	the sun; a day
Taught in	02 · The world in pictures

Where it comes from

The sun-disc, squared off by the brush, the old dot of light kept as the middle stroke. As a word it is both the sun and the day the sun makes. Taught in the pictures chapter, and immediately put to work as a component: 明, 旦, and dozens more are built on it.

How to remember it

A window with the sun caught in it — tall, bright, its inner stroke running wall to wall (that is how you tell it from 曰, the mouth that speaks).

In the wild

日往則月來，月往則日來。rì wǎng zé yuè lái, yuè wǎng zé rì lái"the sun goes, and the moon comes; the moon goes, and the sun comes" — the Changes on why there is a tomorrow

Zhouyi, Appended Words (Xici II), in the compilation Zhouyi jijie. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1a0008:015:16b · license: attribution.