day 日[ri] (the fourth tone) This character is intended to be a pictograph of the sun. Recalling what we said in the previous frame about round forms, it is easy to detect the circle and the big smile that characterize our simplest drawings of the sun—like those yellow badges with the words, “Have a nice day!”
Used as a primitive, this character can mean sun or day or
a tongue wagging in the mouth. This latter meaning, incidentally, derives from an old character meaning something like “sayeth”and written almost exactly the same, except that the latter is more square in shape (曰) than sun (日). In any case, as a primitive element the shape will alter according to its position in the full character and this distinction will become irrelevant.