蠱
gǔ

poison

Depicts poisonous insects (蟲) placed in a container (皿). Alludes to the practice of cultivating poisonous insects inside a container by letting all of the insects devour each other until one poisonous insect remains to use as poison.

Components

蟲
蟲 Iconic component
insects

Used here to depict poisonous insects.

皿
皿 Iconic component
mǐn, mǐng dish

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartkuX[k]ˤaʔ noxious vermin

說文解字

《說文》：“蠱，腹中蟲也。《春秋》傳曰：‘皿蟲為蠱。’晦淫之所生也。臬桀死之鬼亦為蠱。从蟲、从皿。皿，物之用也。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫Wikipedia
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

蛊 gǔ, yě poison Simplified

Simplified form of 蠱. Depicts a poisonous insect (虫) placed in a container (皿). Alludes to the practice of cultivating poisonous insects inside a container by letting all of the insects devour each other until one poisonous insect remains to use as poison.

Components

虫
虫 Iconic component
chóng bug, insect

Used here to depict a poisonous insect.

皿
皿 Iconic component
mǐn, mǐng dish

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫Wikipedia
Readings & variants
Unicode