奥黛
ào​dài

ao dai

奥 aò, ào, yù mysterious Simplified

Original meaning: to store

Simplified form of 奧. Depicts two hands (廾) hiding rice (米) in a corner or a container. Based on the original meaning "to store". The meaning later shifted to "obscure", "profound", and "mysterious".

Components

◎
◎ Iconic component
characterless component

Depicts a hidden corner or a container.

米
米 Iconic component
mǐ rice

Depicts grains of rice.

廾
廾 Iconic component
gǒng two hands

Depicts two hands.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 廾 than it was in ancient scripts.

Component uses

Sound (1 of 4 verified)

噢懊燠襖

說文解字

宛也。室之西南隅。从宀𢍏聲。

Sources

Character origin
鄔可晶《釋「奧」》Wiktionary (JA)
Readings & variants
Unicode
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

黛 dài blacken eyebrows

Phonosemantic compound. 黑 represents the meaning and 代 represents the sound.

Components

黑
黑 Meaning component
hēi black
代
代 Sound component
dài replace

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld Chinese
Zhengzhangl'ɯːɡs
Unicodedhə̀i

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang

奧 mysterious Traditional

Original meaning: to store

Depicts two hands (廾) hiding rice (米) in a corner or a container. Based on the original meaning "to store". The meaning later shifted to "obscure", "profound", and "mysterious".

Components

◎
◎ Iconic component
characterless component

Depicts a hidden corner or a container.

米
米 Iconic component
mǐ rice

Depicts grains of rice. Modern form looks like 釆.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 米 than it was in ancient scripts.
廾
廾 Iconic component
gǒng two hands

Depicts two hands.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 廾 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (1)

澳

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagart'awHʔˤuk-s southwest corner of a house
'juwkʔ(r)uk cove in the bank of a stream

說文解字

《說文》：“奧，宛也。室之西南隅。从宀，聲。”

Sources

Character origin
鄔可晶《釋「奧」》Wiktionary (JA)
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)