菸
yānyú HSK3

to fade

Phonosemantic compound. 艹 represents the meaning and 於 represents the sound.

Components

艹
艹 Meaning component
cao, cǎo grass

艹 is a component form of 艸.

於
於 Sound component
yū, wū in

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangqeːn
qas

說文解字

鬱也。从艸於聲。一曰𣨙也。

Sources

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