drought demon

Components

Meaning component
guǐ ghost

demon

Sound component
bá, quǎn pull up

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangboːd

說文解字

旱鬼也。从鬼犮聲。《周禮》有赤魃氏,除牆屋之物也。《詩》曰:“旱魃爲虐。”

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica