chī​chī

chuckle

chī eat

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Meaning component
kǒu, kou mouth
Sound component
qǐ, qì beg

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangkɯd

說文解字

《說文》:“吃,言蹇難也。从口,气聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica