Glyph origin of 录. Is the original form 禄, 録, or 剥?

Question

Did 录 or 彔 look like some wooden object being carved? Was it originally a knife chipping something which became 録 as in recording events on a wooden object? It also seems to resemble a knife stripping and peeling away outer wooden layers like in 剥 (which btw does not sound anything like 录!).

However, I've seen sources like in http://qiyuan.chaziwang.com/etymology-3605.html say that it's a bag with water dripping below and ultimately became 禄, though I'm not even sure how does a dripping bag end up meaning as blessing. What is the story behind this character?

Answer 1

Is the original form 禄, 録, or 剥?

None of these - and I'm afraid that the chaziwang's description of glyph origins also doesn't look correct.

You have a minor interpretation issue in the question. The link actually says that 「彔」 is the original form of 「淥」 (to strain liquids), while it uses the character 「彔」 as a phonetic loan for 「祿」, not that 「彔」 becomes 「祿」.

The phonetic loan for 「祿」 explanation is plausible, while 「彔」 being the original form of 「淥」 is not supported in a graphical sense; oracle bones or Shāng bronzes did not have a component which is described as a bag that looked like the top of 「彔」.

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時期 字體	字形	參考資料
商 甲		甲598 合集28800
西周 金		彔伯𰒦簋蓋 集成4302
春秋 金		□弔多父盤 總8.4786
戰國・楚 簡		28 曾侯乙墓簡
戰國・楚 簡		145反 包山竹簡
戰國・楚 璽印		214 古璽彙編
	Shape A
戰國・楚 簡		魯穆公問7 郭店楚簡
篆		彔部 說文解字
楷
	Shape B
東漢 銅鏡銘文		吾作鏡
楷

　

「彔」 originally depicted a well-pulley with a container used for drawing water. The small dots around the bottom of the character represent drops of water, equivalent to 「氵」. The word that 「彔」 originally represented is now written as 「轆轤」 (Zhengzhang OC: /*roːɡ raː/). The meaning to carve wood for 「彔」 (/*b·roːɡ/) is a phonetic loan.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

Later on, the well-pulley shape suffered egregious graphical corruption, eventually becoming the shape of 「彑」, while the drops of water turned into 「水・氺」.

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References:

• 漢語多功能字庫
• 季旭昇《說文新證》
• 小學堂字形演變
• 中國哲學書電子化計劃
  • 宋・徐鉉等奉敕校定　漢・許慎《說文解字》
• 國學大師
  • 郭沫若《甲骨文合集》
  • 中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》