石

• Material: Raw stone (boulders, pebbles), refined minerals, and gemstones. In alchemical or medical contexts, specific mineral substances or crystalline materials.
• Qualitative/Metaphorical: Hardness, rigidity, or permanence.

The glyph functions on two distinct semantic tracks: geological/material and bureaucratic/quantitative.

A semantic variant (U+25418) may appear in early seals or raw manuscript images; it does not alter the lexical meaning. As a standalone glyph, 石 embodies the concept of mineral hardness.

When the passage concerns taxation, harvests, tributes, or logistics—particularly when preceded by numerals—the glyph likely denotes a unit of volume (primarily for grain) rather than a physical stone.