Learn one Chinese Character a day – 丝 | 絲

It might be hard to guess its meaning from current way of writing - "丝", let us check the evolution history to see whether we can get any clue from that: ( image get from http://www.vividict.com  )

Learn one Chinese Character a day – 丝 | 絲

It will help if we look at below image of the traditional way of having silkworms to generate their cocoon in the wooden frames.  Oracle Script is the drawing of two which is standing frames with silkworm cocoons.

silkworm cocoon

Seal Script continued Bronze Script  to emphasise the supporting legs of the frames. While it transformed to Clerical Script ,  was further simplified to dots . Modern Simplified Chinese "丝" again simplified  into a . While Modern Traditional Chinese character 絲 pretty much reserves the way of writing from Clerical Script  and its continuation Regular Script .

so "丝 | 絲" means the silk we can get from silkworm cocoons.

It is then extended to mean anything as fine as silk.

And it is then further extended to describe how subtle or fine a thing is

Now it is time to end our lesson today with a Chinese calligraphy:

终岁不闻丝竹声