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眉(Eyebrows)
The character was originally shaped like the profile of a standing person, with the eyebrows and eyes standing out. From the current version of “mei”, you can still see one eye and one eyebrow.
夫(adult males,men)
Fu (夫) refers to adult males, or men. The image of Fu in oracle bone inscriptions was a man wearing a hair clasp. In ancient China, children's hairstyle was different from that of an adult. Males at the age of 15 shall tie their hair into a truss, while at the age of 20 they will begin to wear a hat in the Guan Li (capping ceremony) marking their coming of age at 20.
旦(dawn, day)
In oracle bone script, the character depicts the scene when the sun is rising from the mountain. Nowadays, it expresses the rising of the sun from the horizontal line. It is a pictograph, symbolizing the dawn.
王(wang,king)
The Chinese character "王" (Wang, king) features three transverse lines "三" representing the heaven, people and earth respectively. When linked by the vertical line "|", a character comes into being representing the one owning the absolute authority of the world, the king.
炎(hot)
The character is composed of two "火" (fire). The image of one fire piled on the other apparently indicates the fire is getting bigger. Later, it is used to refer to something broiling
瓦(tile,roof)
The character originally referred to all the utensils made of fired earth. In oracle bone inscriptions, it looks quite similar to an unvarnished earthen jar. Later, the word means the tile piece made of fired earth which is used to cover the house roof. In small seal script, it takes the shape of two interconnected tile pieces with opposite sides upward. Moreover, the word has become the semantic radical of the Chinese characters that refer to vessels similar to jar.
心(heart)
In the oracle bone inscriptions, the character "Xin" is similar to a heart painted by simple lines. The pictograph of Xin really makes us admire the wisdom of our ancestors. The structure of human body was still a mystery at that time for the absence of the anatomy. How amazing when we saw "Xin", one of the earliest characters, so similar to the shape of the heart?
鱼 (fish)
This is a pictograph. The head faces upward, the tail points downward, and the scales are in the middle ring. Some hold that the bottom of the character is a fire, which displays the way ancient Chinese eating fish. Later, the body of the character was stretched as strokes, while the tail was replaced by a horizontal stroke.
儿(child,kid)
In the oracle bone script, the character looks like a child with a big head. The upper part is a child's head, and the lower part is the character "人"(ren，means person).
人(man, person)
From oracle bone inscriptions to modern Chinese characters, the word "ren" in pictograph presents the profile of a human being.