歧途 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

qítú

wrong path

qí fork of road

Phonosemantic compound. 止 represents the meaning and 支 represents the sound.

止 Meaning component

zhǐ (foot), stop

支 Sound component

zhī support, hold up

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	gjie	N-ke (dialect: no palatalization)	forked (road)
Zhengzhang		ɡe
Unicode	ghiɛ

Phonosemantic compound. 辶 represents the meaning and 余 represents the sound.

辶 Meaning component

chuò walk

辶 is a component form of 辵.

余 Sound component

yú I

Change in sound

途 and 余 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
途 *lˤa
余 *la

Regular Modern

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	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	du	lˤa	road