茗
míng

tea

Phonosemantic compound. 艹 represents the meaning and 名 represents the sound.

Components

艹
艹 Meaning component
cao, cǎo grass

艹 is a component form of 艸.

名
名 Sound component
míng name

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangmeːŋʔ

說文解字

荼芽也。从艸名聲。

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)