媒妁
méi​shuò

matchmaker

媒 méi, mèi matchmaker, medium

Phonosemantic compound. 女 represents the meaning and 某 represents the sound.

Components

女
女 Meaning component
nǚ, nü woman
某
某 Sound component
mǒu certain thing or person

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartmwojC.mˤə match-maker, go-between

說文解字

《說文》：“媒，謀也，謀合二姓。从女，某聲。”

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)

妁 shuò, yuē act as go-between

Components

女
女 Meaning component
nǚ, nü woman

woman

勺
勺 Sound component
sháo, shuò, zhuó spoon

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangpljewɢ
bljewɢ

說文解字

酌也，斟酌二姓也。从女勺聲。

Sources

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