This 'feeling' character hides a warrior's weapon

Originally a 'ghostly person' beside a heart, 怪 e

This 'urgent' character hides a leaping heart — i

Its 'white' component (白) is a phonetic ghost —

This ‘forget’ character doesn’t show a blank br

Originally an arrow hitting its mark — now the mo

Its ancient pictograph showed a foot stepping *bac

Born from the taut string of an ancient bow, 张 ev

Its top half 冒 means 'to emerge' — so 帽 literal

Born as a knotted silk sash in ancient rituals, 带

Originally a bronze-age diagram of a walled market

This 3-stroke character began as a coiled serpent

This 'difference' character began as a picture of

This 3-stroke character is a near-perfect 3,000-ye

Though it looks like 'corpse' (尸) resting on 'onc

This 'dwelling' character morphed into a linguisti

Originally a roof sheltering a person, 容 evolved

Ancient Chinese saw harm as a snake slithering und

Originally a woman resting safely under a roof —

Born as 'youngest son' in oracle bone script, it m

This character literally means 'marriage at dusk'

This 'aunt' character hides ancient diplomacy in i

Its 8 strokes hide a Bronze Age pose of astonishme

This 'first dynasty' character began as a dancing

Though it means 'bad', 坏 originally pictured crum

Looks like 'earth' + 'completion' — and it is: th

This character began as a pictograph of a walled e

Originally a tiger-in-a-box symbolizing territoria

This ‘garden’ character began as a pictograph of

Born 2,300 years ago as a ‘mouth that is’ (口+是

This 'beer' character was invented in the 1870s —

This 10-stroke 'mouth + sound' character carries z

This character started as two mouths wailing over

Originally a walled settlement glyph, 周 evolved t

Originally a Bronze Age house with a window pointi

This 5-stroke character began as a hand writing in

This five-stroke 'only' character began as an anci

Originally a pictograph of a knotted rope under a

This 'mouth' has no bottom stroke — because in Ch

This 'uncle' character began as a hand harvesting