腐
fǔ HSK4

rotten, decay

Phonosemantic compound. 府 represents the sound and 肉 represents the meaning.

Components

府
府 Sound component
fǔ government
肉
肉 Meaning component
ròu meat

meat

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartbjuX[b](r)oʔ rotten

說文解字

《說文》:“腐,爛也。从肉,府聲。”

Sources

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