茜
xīqiàn

madder

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

Components

艹
艹 Meaning component
cao, cǎo grass

艹 is a component form of 艸.

西
西 Sound component
xi, xī west

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangsʰɯːns

說文解字

茅蒐也。从艸西聲。

Sources

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