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氵+ 寅 = 演

zisea

拼音:yan3

①根据事理推广发挥：推～。讲～（亦作“演讲”）。～义（以史书及传说的材料为基础，增添一些细节，用章回体写成的小说）。～绎（一种推理方法，由一般原理推出关于特殊情况下的结论）。

②依照程式练习：～练。～示。～算。～武。～习。～兵场。

③不断变化：～变。～化。

④把技艺当众表现出来：表～。～出。～播。～奏。主～。义～。

I can't really see any reason water would be needed in this character from its above meanings.

Chinese Etymology

From water 氵水 and phonetic 寅. Original meaning to flow.

ShuoWen: (說文解字):

長流也一曰水名從水寅聲

If Chinese Etymology is not wrong - and I wouldn't be surprised if it is wrong - then how did it go from meaning water to what it means today?

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  • (1) 長流 (2) 水名從水寅聲 .... Today's meaning is an elaboration of (1) 長流: the further water flows, the wider it spreads, the more it varies.
    – Henry HO
    Aug 19, 2014 at 7:10

1 Answer 1

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http://dict.shufaji.com/word-2326.html

甲骨文（水，喻流程）（矢，代军事操练），造字本义：古代军事模拟实战的流程式操练。篆文将甲骨文的“矢”写成“寅”，明确了军事操练的含义。隶书将篆文的成。

the 氵also got another meaning of flow (process flow), so it does mean that process flor for traditional battle(war) training.

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  • 5
    First, the source you cited plagiarized 象形字典. Second, 象形字典 itself is a very controversial source. All conclusions in that dictionary come from an amateur without citing any other previous work which is divergent from his own opinion. For oracles, though a little out of date, 甲骨文字典 is a much better reference.
    – Stan
    Aug 19, 2014 at 14:56
  • Vividict is not only amateur but almost entirely wrong. The site operator has the (wrong) ideological idea that all Chinese lexicon are entirely explained ideographically when it is prima facie contradicted by things like phonetic loans and character re-analysis/re-normalizations that are known to have occurred and supported by much more solid evidence. The author's enormous effort is wasted for this reason. You can't be an ideologue and a scientist at the same time.
    – Nimrod
    Jul 26, 2018 at 9:10

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