往

A phono-semantic compound:

止 — foot, movement (semantic element)

王 — sound 왕 (phonetic element)

In oracle bone inscriptions (甲骨文), 往 was drawn as:

a foot (止) indicating movement, combined with 王, used purely for sound. This already expressed “movement in a direction”.

Bronze inscriptions (金文 jinwen):

The semantic meaning was reinforced by adding 彳 (“to walk slowly”).

This clarified that 往 referred to intentional movement.

Seal script — Clerical script:

The right-hand 止 + 王 shape blurred into a form later misidentified as 主.

Importantly:

主 has no semantic role here.

The small dot (丶) in modern 往 is a deformed remnant of 止, not a mark of 主.

Structural summary:

彳 + 止 → meaning (movement)

王 → sound

Thus, modern 往 is not related to “master” (主) at all.

왕래 (往來) — coming and going; interaction

왕복 (往復) — round trip

왕진 (往診) — house call (doctor going to patient)

왕세 (往世) — former life; past world

이왕 (已往) — already; since it has come to this

往 is directional and intentional, it means not random movement, but going toward something.

Related characters:

行 — to go, to act (emphasizes movement itself)

去 — to leave (emphasizes departure)

來 — to come

之 — to go (classical particle)

返 — to return

過 — to pass, to exceed

Classical citations:

Analects (論語)

「往者不可諫，來者猶可追」

“What is past cannot be corrected; what is to come can still be pursued.”

Here, 往者 means “that which has gone,” i.e. the past.

Daoist / philosophical prose

「人生如寄，往而不留」

“Human life is but a lodging; it goes and does not remain.”

Common motif in Han–Six Dynasties literature.

Buddhist texts

「往生淨土」

“To go and be reborn in the Pure Land.”

In Buddhism, 往 often implies spiritual departure, not mere physical movement.

徃 (U+5F83) — older / less common