思慕 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

sīmù

admire

sī, si think

Thought is associated with the head (囟) and heart (心). 囟 is also a phonetic component.

Components

囟 Sound Meaning component

xìn fontanel

Depicts the top of the head. The modern form of the this component looks like 田 (field), but is unrelated.

Change in sound

思 and 囟 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
思 *[s]ə
囟 *[s]ə[r]-s

Change in form

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

心 Meaning component

xīn, xin heart

Character Evolution

Bronze form — Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC

Regular Modern

▼ More ▲ Less

Component uses

Sound (0 of 6 verified)

腮鳃锶缌葸鰓

Meaning (1 of 2 verified)

勰慮

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	si	[s]ə	think

說文解字

《說文》：“思，容也。从心，囟聲。”

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)

mù admire, desire

Phonosemantic compound. ⺗ represents the meaning and 莫 represents the sound.

Components

莫 Sound component

mò, mo do not

⺗ Meaning component

xīn heart

⺗ is a component form of 心.

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

▼ More ▲ Less

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	muH	(C.)mˤak-s	love; long for

說文解字

《說文》：“慕，習也。从心，莫聲。”

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)

思 sī, si think

Components

Character Evolution

Component uses

Sound (0 of 6 verified)

Meaning (1 of 2 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

慕 mù admire, desire

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

sī, si think

mù admire, desire