臣

---

← →

retainer

On-Yomi: シン、ジン

Elements:

retainer, slave

Heisig story:

This kanji is actually a pictograph for an eye, distorted to make it appear that the pupil is protruding towards the right. This may not be an easy form to remember, but try this: Draw it once rather large, and notice how moving the two vertical lines on the right as far right as possible gives you the pictograph of the eye in its natural form. The "pop-eye" image belongs to an Emperor's retainer standing in awe before his ruler.

Heisig comment:

* As a primitive, the meaning of the key word becomes slave.

Koohii stories:

1) [lifeflaw] 17-12-2008(112): Retainer: a servant, especially one who has worked for a person or familly for a long time. Now, if you imagine looking at a retainer (e.g. Igor) from top, you see how he is bending his head (middle rectange) between his two shoulders as he offers something with his two hands (upper and lower lines) to his master.

2) [yvanc] 12-6-2007(71): Its a pictograph of a teeth with a retainer in the middle.

3) [dwhitman] 14-11-2007(68): Retainer = A slave (for the purposes of this kanji.) This is a pictograph of a slave collar with two handcuffs dangling from it.

4) [esaulgd] 16-4-2007(23): It may be useful to know that 大臣 （だいじん） means Minister.

5) [gavin.schultz-ohkubo] 17-5-2010(13): It's clearly an X-Wing. Piloted as usual by everyone's favourite slave / retainer, R2-D2. I'll attempt to use him as a primitive in the following kanji. (He's much easier to use as a primitive because a) he's more loveable than an X-Wing and b) he's always where the action is).

---