大

Pictogram (象形): a standing person facing forward. Compare 人, which represents the profile of a person.

Often explained as an ideogram of a person with outstretched arms; however, the ancient scripts do not show stretching.

Compare with 尢, which is a man with bent legs. Compare also 立, similar to 大, and 交, in which the legs are crossed. Compare also 文, which is a man with arms outstretched and a crest or tattoo on his chest, and to 夭, which is a man with arms outstretched and leaning to side (running or marching vigorously).

See the top component of 泰 in the original version (𡙌), the top component of 赤 and the bottom component of 奐 (well visible in some fonts). Related to 太.

Unrelated to 买, in which the bottom component is the stylization of a cowrie.

Cognate with 太 (OC *tʰaːds, “too, excessively”), 泰 (OC *tʰaːds, “big”). Wang (1982) also lists 誕 (OC *l'aːnʔ, “big, magniloquent, ridiculous”) as a cognate, which Schuessler (2007) suggests is cognate with 延 (OC *lan, *lans, “to extend”) instead. There are no unambiguous Tibeto-Burman cognates. Proto-Tibeto-Burman *taj (“big”), from which came Written Tibetan མཐེ་བོ (mthe bo, “thumb”), Anong tʰɛ (“big, large, great”), Mikir tʰè, ketʰè (“big, large, great”), Burmese တယ် (tai, “very”), is often compared with. There is no final –s in the Tibeto-Burman words, but a –y, which, according to James Matisoff, “indicates emergent quality in stative verbs”. Also compare Chinese 多 (OC *ʔl'aːl, “many, much”), 都 (OC *taː, “all”), as well as Burmese လတ် (lat, “medium”), which bears particular resemblance to the Baxter-Sagart reconstruction.