键

Étymologie et composants

The Chinese character 键 (jiàn) for "key" is composed of two parts: 钅 (jiǎn) and 欠 (qiàn). 钅 is a phonetic component that indicates the pronunciation of the character, while 欠 is a semantic component that indicates the meaning of the character.The semantic component 欠 originally meant "to owe" or "to lack". In ancient China, people used tally sticks to record debts. A tally stick was a wooden stick that was split in half, with each party keeping one half. When a debt was repaid, the two halves of the tally stick were fitted together to verify the transaction. The character 欠 is a pictograph of a tally stick, with the two halves of the stick represented by the two strokes on the left side of the character.The phonetic component 钅 is a simplified form of the character 監 (jiàn), which means "to supervise" or "to inspect". The character 監 is composed of the radical 目 (mù), which means "eye", and the phonetic component 監 (jiàn). The radical 目 indicates that the character is related to vision, while the phonetic component 監 indicates the pronunciation of the character.The character 键 (jiàn) is a combination of the semantic component 欠 and the phonetic component 钅. The semantic component indicates the meaning of the character, while the phonetic component indicates the pronunciation of the character. The character 键 can be used as a noun to mean "key" or as a verb to mean "to lock" or "to fasten".