看似
kàn​sì HSK7

seem

看 kàn, kān look

Phonosemantic compound. 目 represents the meaning and 倝 represents the sound.

Components

倝
倝 SoundRemnant component
gàn sunrise
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 倝 than it was in ancient scripts.
目
目 Meaning component
mù eye

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartkhankʰˤa[r] to watch, guard
khanH[kʰ]ˤa[r]-s gaze at

說文解字

《說文》：“看，睎也。从手下目。，看或从倝。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.268-269
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

似 shì, sì resemble

Phonosemantic compound. 亻 represents the meaning and 以 represents the sound.

Components

亻
亻 Meaning component
rén person

亻 is a component form of 人.

以
以 Sound component
yǐ by means of
Change in sound

Character Evolution

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

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartziXsə.ləʔ resemble

Sources

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