0044 師

師

This is SHI in Japanese and shī in Chinese, meaning ‘teacher, master; army.’ There are conflicting stories about this character. Sears says that the left-hand element represents a bow (a compound bow, I assume) and the right-hand character is an inverted foot, here indicating ‘to follow.’Perhaps one follows the leader who has the bow, or follows the arrow shot from the bow of wisdom by the teacher. Here’s the archaic character:

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