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I've looked around and one place says it's from the skin of an animal, another one says it's an axe striking a beast and another one says it's a battle helmet with an animal skin.

So what's the story behind it and it's relation to the meaning today?

Thanks!

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2

Dislcaimer: The interpretations of the glyph forms and OC reconstructions are my personal opinion. Professional opinions state that this character is still open for interpretation.

商
甲
enter image description here
甲1249
合集31219西周
金
enter image description here
大克鼎
集成2836春秋
金
enter image description here
公克敦
集成4641今
楷
enter image description here

　

I guess you can view「克」(Baxter-Sagart OC: /*kʰˤək/, to achieve victory over/subdue/defeat an opponent in a military confrontation), as being a merger between semantic「由」(battle helmet, now written as「冑」) and reduced phonetic「革」(/*kˤrək/). The graphically reduced「革」looks like「⿱廿尸」or「⿱口尸」(picture of animal skin and horns).

Specifically, the bottom part of「由」is merged with the top part of the reduced「革」.

For reference:

  • 「由」

    商
    甲
    enter image description here
    甲2123
    合集557    戰國・楚
    簡帛
    enter image description here
    六德・19
    郭店楚簡    今
    楷
    enter image description here

    　

  • 「皮」(skinning an animal)

    西周
    金
    enter image description here
    九年衛鼎
    集成2831    秦
    簡
    enter image description here
    秦律十八7
    睡虎地秦簡    西漢
    隸
    enter image description here
    孫臏・220
    銀雀山漢簡
    今
    楷
    enter image description here

    　

  • 「革」(picture of flattened animal skin). Roughly speaking,「⿱廿尸」or「⿱口尸」is「革」folded in half along the animal's spine.

    商
    甲
    enter image description here
    花東474
    　    西周
    金
    enter image description here
    康鼎
    集成2786    戰國・楚
    簡帛
    enter image description here
    遣策
    天星觀楚簡    秦
    簡
    enter image description here
    秦律雜抄16
    睡虎地秦簡    今
    楷
    enter image description here

    　

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  • 1
    That's what I miss about the Outlier Dictionary sometimes. What you did was corroborating the ideas. The dictionary saying "it's a helmet with an animal skin" was not enough. You just drew every single part and now I'm totally convinced that it really is (even if it's wrong) a helmet fused with the skin. Thank you! – Enrico Brasil Sep 20 '19 at 14:08
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Outlier writes:

克 depicts a battle helmet (now written 古) and an animal skin (now written 儿). It was used in bronze inscriptions to mean “to defeat.”

Their reference is:

季旭昇，2004《說文新證》，台北：藝文印書館印行，2014年9月二版。p. 237

And they also give the ancient form of the character:

enter image description here

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  • Yeah, I have that dictionary. But sometimes I think the explanation is too shallow. – Enrico Brasil Sep 13 '19 at 14:19

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