蜚
fēifěi

cockroach

Phonosemantic compound. 虫 represents the meaning and 非 represents the sound.

Components

虫
虫 Meaning component
chóng bug, insect
非
非 Sound component
fēi not

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 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 Jin 266-420 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartpjɨjXpəjʔnoxious insect
Zhengzhangpɯlʔ
bɯls

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-SagartZhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica