chǔ

pestle

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound. Originally written as , a pictograph of a pestle used for pounding rice.

Components

Meaning component
tree
Sound component
wǔ, wu noon

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarttsyhoXt.qʰaʔ pestle

說文解字

《說文》:“杵,舂杵也。从木,午聲。”

Sources

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