昆卡
Kūn​kǎ

Cuenca

昆 kūn elder brother

Original meaning: insect

Depicts an insect. Based on the original meaning "insect", now preserved in the word 昆虫. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
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

Component uses

Sound (1 of 17 verified)

混棍琨馄锟鲲绲辊醌鹍緄輥鵾鯤崑錕餛

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartkwon[k]ˤu[n] elder brother

說文解字

《說文》：“昆，同也。从日，从比。”

Sources

Character origin
李学勤《字源》p.608
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

卡 kǎ stuck

Origin unclear, but typically explained as being stuck between something above (上) and something below (下). The uses of 卡 to mean "card" or "calorie" are foreign phonetic loans.

Components

上
上 Iconic component
shàng, shang up
下
下 Iconic component
xià, xia under

Component uses

Sound (0 of 3 verified)

咔胩佧

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode