字形分析Character Analysis:
会意字，从刀从衣(衤)。
初 is a Logical Aggregate, formed from two pictograms: on the right is 刀 (literally means a knife; a soldier's sword; a saber); on the left is 衣 (literally means clothes; clothing. You can see from the top down that 衣 looks like an ancient Chinese upper garment or jacket, with a neckline, two sleeves and a hanging lap). The two semantic indicators combine to give 初 a meaning of the first step or the very beginning of making a garment is to cut a cloth into certain shape with a knife.
本义original meaning:
裁衣之始；起始，开端 at the beginning (of making a dress); in the early part of
Lily explains 初like this:
Once upon a time, there lived a well-known tailor in a small town. The tailor was famous not only for his superb excellent dressmaking skills with a knife instead of a pair of scissors, but for one of his odd habits that every time the tailor set out to work, he insisted on his assistant's placing his knife on the right side of his worktable and the cloth or clothing to process on the left. One day, however, the assistant drank a little more than was good for him and mistakenly placed the tailor's knife on the wrong left. The assistant was taking a nap in his room when the tailor suddenly broke in and hobbled along to his bed, howling with pain, 'Have I ever told you that I'm left-handed? How dare you put my knife on the left! Thanks to you, I had to jump across the worktable to have my knife on the right and broke my leg!'
