Word Family of Terms Originally Pronounced SUK

Semantic Values of the Sound SUK: Small/Thin/Slender + Circle/Mass




  Terms in this word family suggest that with respect to small/thin/slender objects there is an element of circularity and/or of massing. We find firewood bundled with a cord in 束, the mass of lower leg muscles in 足, and arrows piled beneath a pennant in 族.
　Among the non-Everyday Use Characters, we find the following examples:

Compacted grain or food (粟, 餗)
Hand compressed about an object (捉)
Rapid chewing, the mouth formed in an elliptical shape (齪)
Arrows compacted in a quiver (鏃)
Luxuriant vegetation (蔟)

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




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