中

皁

Unicode: U+7681

Pinyin: zào

Variants:梍皀𣅖𦯑𦳱

Definition

* zào ㄗㄠˋ 同""

black; police runners, from the black clothes formerly worn by them

Structure

Related substructures

Precursors

Clerical Script
c. 300 BCE–220 CE (emerged late Warring States/Qin; dominant Han)
A practical script that evolved from late Warring States/Qin writing; it matured and became dominant in the Han dynasty, favoring faster, more rectilinear strokes.Wikipedia ->
71_E08691_E51C91_E51D91_E51E91_E52491_E51F91_E52091_E52191_E52291_E52591_E52691_E52391_E52791_E529
Transmitted Pre-Qin Forms
Pre-Qin forms (≤221 BCE) / late 2nd century BCE onward (Han → later textual transmission)
Pre-Qin character forms preserved through later textual transmission (often discussed as the 'Old Text' / guwen tradition). Shaped by repeated copying, they can diverge from excavated Warring States materials.Wikipedia ->
83_EAB8
Liushutong Seal Forms
Pre-Qin to Han seal-type forms (≤220 CE) / compiled 1661 (Min Qiji); collated and printed 1720 (Bi Hongshu)
A ten-volume compendium of seal-script variants arranged by the rhymes of Hongwu Zhengyun: each head character gives its Shuowen small seal form, then variants gathered from guwen, zhouwen, bronze inscriptions and Qin–Han seals. Long a standard reference for seal carvers, but the forms are compiled rather than excavated and were collected with little vetting, so many are of doubtful authenticity.Wikimedia Commons ->
L31_8B0L31_8B1