美妙
měi​miào HSK7

beautiful

美 měi beautiful

Pictograph of a person with ornamental headwear resembling sheep horns.

Components

羊
羊 Iconic component
yáng sheep

Depicts ornamental headwear resembling sheep horns.

大
大 Iconic component
dà, dài big

Used here as a pictograph of a person.


Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (0 of 2 verified)

镁鎂

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

羹

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartmijX[m]rəjʔ beautiful

說文解字

《說文》：“美，甘也。从羊，从大。”

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)

妙 miào mysterious

Phonosemantic compound. 女 represents the meaning and 少 represents the sound.

Components

女
女 Meaning component
nǚ, nü woman
少
少 Sound component
shǎo, shao, shào few

Character Evolution

Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartmjiewH[m]ew(ʔ)-s marvelous

Sources

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