美洲虎
Měi​zhōu​hǔ

jaguar

美 měi beautiful

Pictograph of a person with ornamental headwear resembling sheep horns.

Components

羊
羊 Iconic component
yáng sheep

Depicts ornamental headwear resembling sheep horns.

大
大 Iconic component
dà, dài big

Used here as a pictograph of a person.


Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (0 of 2 verified)

镁鎂

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

羹

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartmijX[m]rəjʔ beautiful

說文解字

《說文》：“美，甘也。从羊，从大。”

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)

洲 zhōu continent

Phonosemantic compound. 氵 represents the meaning and 州 represents the sound.

Components

氵
氵 Meaning component
shui, shuǐ water

氵 is a component form of 水.

州
州 SoundMeaning component
zhōu state, province, islet

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagarttsyuwtu islet

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart

虎 hǔ, hu tiger

Pictograph of a tiger.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Seal form
Seal Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Meaning (2 of 5 verified)

彪琥號虒猇

Sound (1 of 3 verified)

唬琥處

Iconic (2)

虢冡

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartxuXqʰˤraʔ (W dialect: *qˤʰr- >r̥ˤ- > x-)tiger

說文解字

《說文》：“虎，山獸之君。从虍，虎足象人足，象形……虝，古文虎。，亦古文虎。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.409
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)