味蕾
wèi​lěi

taste bud

味 wèi taste

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

Components

口
口 Meaning component
kǒu, kou mouth
未
未 Sound component
wèi not yet

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
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 Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartmj+jHm[ə]t-s taste (n.)

說文解字

《說文》：“味，滋味也。从口，未聲。”

Sources

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

蕾 lěi buds

Phonosemantic compound. 艹 represents the meaning and 雷 represents the sound.

Components

艹
艹 Meaning component
cao, cǎo grass

艹 is a component form of 艸.

雷
雷 Sound component
léi thunder

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangruːlʔ

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang