Wei Collection, Lower Volume Radical: Meat (ròu) 胚 Kangxi Stroke Count: 11 Page 979, Entry 03 According to the Collection of Rhymes (Jiyun), pronounced pei. It refers to a woman being one month pregnant. Some sources write the character with the woman radical. According to the Literary Expositor (Erya), in the chapter explaining ancient terms, it means the beginning of a pregnancy. The commentary states that an embryo (pei) is the state before it has taken form, which also represents the initial stage of any matter. In the River Rhapsody (Jiang Fu) by Guo Pu, it is used to describe things like the primordial chaos that has not yet coalesced. The commentary describes this as clouds and vapor being dark and indistinct, similar to an embryo in a state of chaos that has not yet condensed. Additionally, according to the Jade Chapters (Yupian), pronounced pi. The meaning is the same. According to the Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters (Shuowen), it was not originally written with the component for not (fou).