Abstract:
Etymologically, the word “蟲” once referred to all animals, ranging from young worms to large-size reptiles and from animal world to human world. “虫” as a word can either used in primary meaning, referring to animals like snakes and boas, or used as a word component. As a result, the meanings of those Chinese characters with the component “虫” were naturally influenced by the word’s primary meaning as the name of all animals, hence a considerably vast denotation. Although the semantic domain of the word “蟲” was diminished later, the fossilizing means of creating words in philology carved the special phenomenon of the word “蟲” meant all animals forever on the delimited semantic domain of the words in time of creating words.
