狗咬狗
gǒu​yǎo​gǒu

dog-eat-dog

狗 gǒu dog

Phonosemantic compound. 犭 represents the meaning and 句 represents the sound.

Components

犭
犭 Meaning component
quǎn dog

犭 is a component form of 犬.

句
句 Sound component
jù sentence
Change in sound

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
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 Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartkuwXCə.kˤroʔ dog

說文解字

《說文》：“狗，孔子曰：‘狗，叩也，叩气吠以守。’从犬，句聲。”

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)

咬 yǎo bite

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 交 represents the sound.

Components

口
口 Meaning component
kǒu, kou mouth
交
交 Sound component
jiāo to cross, to mix

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld Chinese
Zhengzhangkreːw
ŋɡreːwʔ
qreːw
Unicodegǎu

Sources

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