探明 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

tànmíng

ascertain

tàn, tan explore, find

Phonosemantic compound. 扌 represents the meaning and 罙 represents the sound.

Components

扌 Meaning component

shou, shǒu hand

扌 is a component form of 手.

罙 Sound component

shēn deep

Change in sound

探 and 罙 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
探 *l̥ˤ[ə]m
罙 *[l̥][ə]m

Character Evolution

Seal form — Seal Shuowen ~100 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	thom	l̥ˤ[ə]m	put the hand into and test

說文解字

《說文》：“，遠取之也。从手，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)

míng, ming bright

The character was originally depicted moonlight (月) shining through a window (囧). The 囧 component was later reanalyzed as 日 (sun).

Components

囧 Sound Iconic component

jiǒng bright window

The modern form looks similar to 日 (sun).

Change in sound

明 and 囧 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
明 *mraŋ
囧 *k-mraŋʔ (dialect: *k.mr- > *kʷr-)

Change in form

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

月 Iconic component

yuè, yue moon

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

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Qin 221-206 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Qin 221-206 BC

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

Seal form — Seal Qin 221-206 BC

Seal form — Seal Shuowen ~100 AD

Seal form — Seal Shuowen ~100 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Qin 221-206 BC

Clerical form — Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 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)

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	mjaeng	mraŋ	bright

說文解字

《說文》：“朙，照也。从月，从囧。明，古文朙，从日。”

Sources

Character origin: 季旭昇《說文新證》p.551-552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)