疇

Traditionally analyzed as a phono-semantic compound, though its historical development is unusually complex:

田 (field) — semantic component, indicates agriculture, farmland

壽 (long life) — phonetic component, provides sound, inherited from earlier forms

Ancient forms:

𤲮 — original form used in Shuowen Jiezi

𢏚, 𠃬 — ancient seal-script variants

According to Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字) the character depicts a person bending over while working in a field.

Other interpretations describe furrows with irrigation channels, and footprints of oxen between ridges, making 疇 a character deeply rooted in early agrarian life.

Although 疇 later adopted 壽 as its visible phonetic element, the sound originally came from 𢏚, making 疇 an unusual case where a character’s phonetic source evolved into its own component.

Original meaning is "a furrow or ridge in a plowed field."

Extended & abstract meanings: "domain, category, scope".

This abstract sense arises naturally from:

“a divided field → a bounded domain → a conceptual category.”

범주 (範疇) — category; scope; domain

동주 (同疇) — same category; same group (rare / classical)

유주 (類疇) — classified category (rare)

疇 is not merely abstract, its conceptual meaning is grounded in physical land division.

This makes it conceptually parallel to:

域 (territory),

界 (boundary),

範 (norm).

Related characters:

疇 — category (from agriculture; classical, structural)

類 — type; kind (similarity-based)

範 — norm; model (standard-based)

域 — territory; domain (spatial)

科 — branch; field (institutional)

Contrast characters:

疇 — bounded category (organized division)

雜 — mixed (lack of categorization)

散 — scattered (no structure)

無類 — without category (unclassifiable)

疇 implies ordered classification, while 雜 / 散 imply disorder or lack of boundaries.