吞吃 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

tūnchī

devour

tūn swallow

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 天 represents the sound.

Components

口 Meaning component

kǒu, kou mouth

天 Sound component

tiān, tian sky

Character Evolution

Seal form — Seal Shuowen ~100 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	then	l̥ ˤən	(surname)
	thon	l̥ ˤən	to swallow
Zhengzhang		qʰl'iːn
		qʰl'ɯːn
Unicode	tən

說文解字

咽也。从口天聲。

Sources

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

chī eat

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 乞 represents the sound.

Components

口 Meaning component

kǒu, kou mouth

乞 Sound component

qǐ, qì beg

Character Evolution

Seal form — Seal Shuowen ~100 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Old Chinese
Zhengzhang	kɯd

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
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)