泥棒 (dorobō: thief; theft) mud ＋ tough guy
We saw the latter half of 泥棒 last week, learning that 棒 has the yomi of BŌ and means “pole, rod, stick.” But we also saw that this kanji can mean “tough guy.” Sure enough, Halpern says that that’s the meaning in 泥棒.
As for 泥 (DEI, doro: mud), it looks to have a fascinating etymology, as this character combines “water,”
, “corpse,” 尸, and “seated person,” ヒ. But alas, Henshall says that the etymology is as clear as mud.
The water here means “river.” And 尼 means “nun”! Didn’t see that one coming! Some scholars feel that the 尼 only contributes sound here, expressing the name of a particular river in ancient China. If so, “mud” would be an associated meaning.
But Henshall prefers another interpretation, in which 尼 acts phonetically to mean “stop.” If a river stops flowing, you have mud!
Makes sense, right? But things stop making sense when you consider that in 泥棒, mud + tough guy = robber! Halpern calls this an “unclassified compound,” meaning that we shouldn’t really view 泥 as meaning “mud” here. After all that hard work to see how the components might add up to “mud,” it turns out that there is no mud to see!
