充值卡
chōng​zhí​kǎ

prepaid card

充 chōng fill

Pictograph of an adult person with a hairpin in their hair, indicating being fully grown up into adulthood. In ancient China, adults usually wore a hairpin. Similar in origin to 每.

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (2 of 5 verified)

统铳統茺銃

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagarttsyhuwngtʰuŋ full, fill

說文解字

《說文》：“充，長也；高也。从儿，育省聲。”

Sources

Character origin
許進雄《簡明中國文字學》p.339-340
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

值 zhí price

Phonosemantic compound. 亻 represents the meaning and 直 represents the sound.

Components

亻
亻 Meaning component
rén person

亻 is a component form of 人.

直
直 Sound component
zhí straight

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartdriHm-t<r>ək-s hold upright

說文解字

《說文》：“值，措也。从人，直聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

卡 kǎ stuck

Origin unclear, but typically explained as being stuck between something above (上) and something below (下). The uses of 卡 to mean "card" or "calorie" are foreign phonetic loans.

Components

上
上 Iconic component
shàng, shang up
下
下 Iconic component
xià, xia under

Component uses

Sound (0 of 3 verified)

咔胩佧

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode