Word Family of Terms Originally Pronounced SUAT

Semantic Values of the Sound SUAT: Small/Thin/Slender + (Curving/Round) + Cut/Divide/Reduce




  The SUAT word family is a branch of the TUAT word family, emphasizing applications that have in particular to do with smallness, thinness or slenderness.

　Terms in this word family add the nuance of curvature or roundness to the SAT family theme of Small/Thin/Slender + Cut/Divide/Reduce. We find a wiping of the buttocks in 刷, a broom made of thin, curving ears of grain in 彗 as described in 雪, and a tying of items into an orderly unit in both 卒 and 帥.

　Among the non-Everyday Use Characters, we find the following examples:

Reduction of good fortune (祟)
Reduction of empty space (毳, 橇, 邃)
Reduction of heat in cooling molten metal (淬)
Reduction in the field of vision (睟)
Reduce the size of an object by grasping it (捽)
Compression of the lips (啐)
A wasting illness (瘁)
The annealing of many pieces of metal into a single object (焠)

　Extensions of meaning or abstract applications of the senses noted above are found in the remaining characters in this group.




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