吊塔
diào​tǎ

tower crane

吊 diào to hang

Original meaning: silk streamers used for arrows

Variant of 弔. Depicts a person carrying silk streamers used for wrapping around arrows with. Based on the original meaning "silk streamers used for arrows", now written as 繳. The meaning later shifted to "to hang" and "to hang a person".

Components

◎
◎ Iconic component
characterless component

Depicts silk streamers used for wrapping around arrows with.

人
人 Iconic component
rén, ren person
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 人 than it was in ancient scripts.

Component uses

Sound (0 of 2 verified)

铞屌

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

屌

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarttewHtˤ[e]wk-sgrieved; condole
Zhengzhangtiːwɢs

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.639-640黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》p.838-839漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-SagartZhengzhang Shangfang

塔 tǎ tower

Phonosemantic compound. 土 represents the meaning and 荅 represents the sound.

Components

土
土 Meaning component
tǔ earth
荅
荅 Sound component
dā, dá, tà small bean

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld Chinese
Zhengzhangtʰuːb
Unicodetɑp

說文解字

《說文新附》：“塔，西域浮屠也。从土，答聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)