美貌
měi​mào

beauty

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)

貌 mào appearance

Phonosemantic compound. 皃 represents the meaning and a remnant of 豹 represents the sound.

Components

豹
豹 SoundRemnant component
bào leopard
皃
皃 SoundMeaning component
mào face, countenance

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
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
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (0 of 1 verified)

邈

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartmaewHmˤrawk-s appearance, manner

說文解字

《說文》：“皃，頌儀也。从人，白象人面形。，皃或从頁，豹省聲。貌，籀文皃，从豹省。”

Sources

Character origin
李学勤《字源》p.759-760
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)