孕育 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

yùnyù HSK7

gestate

yùn be pregnant

Pictograph of a pregnant woman (身) with a child (子) inside of her body.

Components

身 Iconic component

shēn body

Depicts a woman with her uterus emphasized. Modern form looks like unrelated 乃.

Change in form

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

子 Iconic component

zi, zǐ child

Character Evolution

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Seal form — Seal Shuowen ~100 AD

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	yingH	l[i]ŋ-s	pregnant

說文解字

《說文》：“孕，褢子也。从子，从几。”

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)

yù to have children

Phonosemantic compound. 𠫓 represents the meaning and ⺼ represents the sound. Originally written as 毓.

Components

𠫓 Iconic component

tū, yù newborn

Depicts an upside-down child being born head-first. Upside-down rotation of 子.

⺼ Sound component

ròu meat, flesh

Change in sound

育 and ⺼ don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Middle Chinese.
育 yuwk
⺼ nyuwk

Character Evolution

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC

Seal form — Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD

Seal form — Seal Shuowen ~100 AD

Seal form — Seal Shuowen ~100 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Sound (0 of 2 verified)

Unknown (0 of 1 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	yuwk	m-quk	breed, produce

說文解字

養子使作善也。从𠫓肉聲。《虞書》曰：“教育子。”

Sources

Character origin: 漢語多功能字庫季旭昇《說文新證》p.974
Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)