Original meaning: to fall (rain/snow)
Phonosemantic compound. 雨 represents the meaning and 令 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "to fall (of rain/snow)". The meaning later shifted to "scattered", "fraction", and "zero".
Components
Character Evolution
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | leng | [r]ˤiŋ | fall (v., of rain) |
說文解字
《說文》：“零，餘雨也。从雨，令聲。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 漢語多功能字庫
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)
Originally written as 𢽳, which depicted trees (林) being struck (攵) to make things fall off the tree and scatter. The character 斝 was sometimes confused with the character 散, and a corruption of it visually similar to 月 was added.
Components
Character Evolution
Component uses
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | sanX | [s]ˤa[n]ʔ | scattered (adj.) |
| sanH | mə-sˤa[n]ʔ-s | scatter (v.t.) |
說文解字
《說文》：“，雜肉也。从肉，聲。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 季旭昇《說文新證》p.345-346
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)