míng​hūn

ghost marriage

míng, mián, miàn dark

Original meaning: to give birth to a child

Depicts two hands (𠬜) opening a woman's legs with a baby's head protruding out of it. Based on the original meaning "to give birth to a child", now written as . The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

Iconic component
characterless component

Depicts the legs of a woman.

Iconic component
characterless component

Depicts a baby's head.

𠬜
𠬜 Iconic component
pān to climb

Depicts two hands facing away from each other. Modern form looks like .

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 𠬜 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Xin 9-23 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 Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (0 of 5 verified)

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartmengmˤeŋ dark

說文解字

《說文》:“冥,幽也。从日,从六,冖聲。日數十,十六日而月始虧,幽也。”

Sources

hūn get married

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Meaning component
nǚ, nü woman
Sound component
hūn, hún twilight

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartxwonm̥ˤu[n] marriage

說文解字

《說文》:“婚,婦家也。禮,娶婦以昏時。婦人陰也,故曰婚。从女,从昏,昏亦聲。,籀文婚。”

Sources

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