Pictograph of a hand grabbing a woman's hair to take her as a wife. In ancient China, women of marriageable age wore hairpins (compare with 每).

Evolution

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Regular script

Modern

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