Cáo Cāo

literary villain

cáo plaintiff and defendant

Phonosemantic compound. represents the sound and represents the meaning. Depicts a pair () of people speaking () against each other, i.e. a plaintiff and a defendant. The meaning later expanded to "of the same generation".

Components

SoundMeaning component
cáo, zāo pair

The character was originally a pictograph of a basket. This component is a pair of merged together.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to than it was in ancient scripts.
Meaning component
yuē say

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
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

Component uses

Sound (1 of 8 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartdzawN-tsˤu come together; pair

說文解字

《說文》:,獄之兩曹也。在廷東,从,治事者,从曰。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫李学勤《字源》p.417
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica

cāo grasp, control

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Meaning component
shou, shǒu hand

is a component form of .

Sound component
zào, sào, qiāo chirping of birds

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
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

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarttshawX[tsʰ]ˤawʔ grasp (v.)
tshawH[tsʰ]ˤawʔ-s (what is grasped:) principles

說文解字

《說文》:“操,把持也。从手,喿聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica