ǎo

old woman

Character Evolution

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

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartʔawXʔˤuʔold woman
Zhengzhangquːʔ

說文解字

女老偁也。从女𥁕聲。讀若奥。

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-SagartZhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica

ǎo, yǔn, wò old woman Simplified

Components

Meaning component
nǚ, nü woman

woman

Sound component
wēn to feed a prisoner

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode