Kūn​tīng

Quentin

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

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

tīng, tìng, dìng sandbar

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Meaning component
shui, shuǐ water

is a component form of .

Sound component
dīng cubes

Character Evolution

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

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartthengtʰˤeŋlevel land beside water
Zhengzhangtʰeːŋ
tʰeːŋs
Unicodeteng

說文解字

平也。从水丁聲。

Sources

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