窕
tiǎo

slender

Phonosemantic compound. 穴 represents the meaning and 兆 represents the sound.

Components

穴
穴 Meaning component
xué, jué cave
兆
兆 Sound component
zhào omen

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Jin 266-316 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartdewXlˤ[e]wʔ窈窕 beautiful
Zhengzhangl'eːwʔ
Unicodedhěu

說文解字

深肆極也。从穴兆聲。讀若挑。

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-SagartZhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)