坷
kěkē

clod of earth

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

Components

土
土 Meaning component
tǔ earth
可
可 Sound component
kě able to

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangkʰaːlʔ
kʰaːls

說文解字

坎坷也。梁國寕陵有坷亭。从土可聲。

Sources

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