Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word 巳. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word 巳, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say 巳 in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word 巳 you have here. The definition of the word 巳 will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of巳, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
Pictogram (象形) of a snake (therefore, it should be similar to 巴). This theory is found in the Shuowen Jiezi;
Pictogram (象形) of a fetus (it can be seen in 包, 胞. In 包, the radical should represent the placenta. 胞 today means "cell").
The character is similar to 已, which cannot be found in the Shuowen Jiezi.
Etymology 1
巳 (OC s-ləʔ) displaced 子 (OC tsəʔ), the original sixth earthly branch which denoted the moon's "coming forth" stage (i.e. early waning-gibbous phase) "due to phonological closeness (combined with the semantic opacity of the Branch terms at later eras)" (Smith, 2011).
Association with the snake was possibly arbitrary, analogous to how 辰, the fifth earthly branch, was arbitrarily associated with the dragon (Ferlus, 2013).
Assumed to be an abbreviation of 蛇(hemi, “snake”, modern reading hebi).
Philological analyses presume this was read as mi₂ in Old Japanese, as names 身麻呂(mi₂maro₂, “a male born on the year of the Snake”) and 身売(mi₂me₁, “a female born on the year of the Snake”) were recorded in Shōsōin documents, alongside other names born on the Chinese zodiac.
↑ 1.01.11.2“み 【巳】”, in 日本国語大辞典(Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, “Nihon Kokugo Daijiten”) (in Japanese), 2nd edition, Tōkyō: Shogakukan, 2000, released online 2007, →ISBN, concise edition entry available here (Note: Dialectal meanings, etymological theories, pronunciation including modern, dialectal, and historical information, Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai, historical dictionaries containing this word, and the kanji spellings in those dictionaries have been omitted.)
The 語源説(gogensetsu, “etymological theory”) section says: