zhū​shā

cinnabar

zhū, shū red pigment

Original meaning: tree trunk

Pictograph of a tree () with a mark indicating where the trunk is. Based on the original meaning "tree trunk", now written as . The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

Iconic component
tree
Iconic component
characterless component

mark indicating the location of the tree's trunk


Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Seal form
Seal Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Spring and Autumn 771-476 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagarttsyuto dwarf
tsyuto red

說文解字

《說文》:“朱,赤心木,松柏屬。从木,一在其中。”

Sources

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

shā sand

Components

Meaning component
shí stone
SoundIconic component
shǎo, shao, shào few

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld Chinese
Zhengzhangsraːl
Unicodeshra

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang