Glyph origin of 盗

Question

What's the story behind this character 盗? None of the components seems to hint at the sound, or the meaning of 'pirate/steal/rob', unless water in the upper left part and is the bottom component a corrupted version of boat 舟?

Answer 1

「盗」 is Simplified Chinese, the orthodox character is 「盜」.

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時期 字體	字形	參考資料
—	（待考）	—
商 甲		前6.32.5 合集8315
西周 金		逆𬅣父辛觶 集成6416
春秋 金		秦公鎛 集成267
—	「盜」	—
秦 簡		20.193 睡虎地秦簡
東漢 隸		春秋 昭廿年 熹平石經
楷

Barring new excavated evidence, 「盜」 is only unambiguously traceable back to around the Qín era. Under these circumstances, the standard practice is to take Shuōwén's explanation on face value:

《說文・㳄部》

　

「盜」，私利物也。从「㳄」，「㳄」欲「皿」者。

「盜」, to hold selfish desires towards material goods. From semantic 「㳄」 (drool > to covet), 「㳄」 is that who wishes for 「皿」 (dishes/bowls)*.

_{*The ancient middle-upper classes often had expensive bronze vessels, so these are a sign of material wealth.}

To covet material goods was then extended to to steal. In fact, this isn't too far off from how the glyph origin of 「羨」 (envy) is described - from semantic 「㳄」 (drool > to covet) and semantic 「羊」 (sheep), indicating the original meaning the desire for mutton.

If one wants to trace 「盜」 back to oracle bone script, it is usually explained as

　

starting off from semantic 「㳄」 (picture of a person with an open mouth with spit coming out > to flood, overflow) and semantic 「舟」 (boat), indicating the meaning flooding (of a river).

　

「㳄」 was later complexified into 「𣶙」 through the addition of another 「水」, and 「舟」 was corrupted into 「皿」.

These forms are thought to be pronounced similar to 「㳄・涎」 or 「羨」. How this then becomes the meaning and/or sound of 「盜」 is then a bit of a leap.

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References:

• 何琳儀《戰國古文字典：戰國文字聲系》
• 漢語多功能字庫
• 小學堂字形演變
• 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》