臿
chā

to separate the grain from the husk

Depicts using a pestle (午) to grind grain to be separated from its husk in a mortar (臼). Original form of 插.

Components

午
午 Iconic component
wǔ, wu noon

Depicts a pestle.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 午 than it was in ancient scripts.
臼
臼 Iconic component
jiù mortar

Depicts a mortar.


Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (1 of 3 verified)

插锸歃

Meaning (1)

插

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagarttsrheap[tsʰ]<r>op pestle

說文解字

《說文》：“臿，舂去麥皮也。从臼，干，所以臿之。”

Sources

Character origin
Wenlin Dictionarieszi.tools
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)