焦糖
jiāo​táng

caramel

焦 jiāo burned

Original meaning: wren

Originally a pictograph of a wren. Based on the original meaning "wren", now written as 鷦. Later used as a phonetic loan for "burn", after which the fire (灬) component was added.

Components

隹
隹 Meaning component
zhuī, cuī, wéi bird
Change in meaning
隹 hints at the original meaning of 焦, "wren", which is no longer the most common meaning of 焦 in modern Mandarin.
灬
灬 Meaning component
biāo, huǒ fire

灬 is a component form of 火.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Warring States 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
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 Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Jin 266-316 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (4 of 15 verified)

瞧礁蕉樵憔醮谯鹪僬劁噍蟭膲鷦譙

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

樵

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarttsjewS.tew burn, scorch
tsjewS.tew Jiao (place name)

說文解字

《說文》：“，火所傷也。从火，雥聲。，或省。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.757-758漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

糖 táng sugar

Phonosemantic compound. 米 represents the meaning and 唐 represents the sound.

Components

米
米 Meaning component
mǐ rice
唐
唐 Sound component
táng exaggerate

Character Evolution

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

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartdangC.lˤaŋ (no pre-Qín exx)sugar

說文解字

《說文新附》：“糖，飴也。从米，唐聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)