sāo​rán

turbulent

sāo, sǎo, xiāo harass Simplified

A flea  biting a horse  also provides the pronunciation

Components

Meaning component
horse
SoundMeaning component
zǎo, zhǎo flea

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode

rán, ran yes

Original meaning: burn

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "burn", now written as . The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

Meaning component
biāo, huǒ fire

is a component form of .

Sound component
rán dog meat

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Early Spring and Autumn ~700 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 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
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (1)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartnyen[n]a[n] so, thus; (adv suffix)

說文解字

《說文》:“然,燒也。从火,肰聲。,或从艸、難。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica

harass Traditional

A flea  biting a horse  also provides the pronunciation

Components

Meaning component
horse
SoundMeaning component
zǎo, zhǎo flea

Character Evolution

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

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartsaw[s]ˤudisturb
Zhengzhangsuː
Unicodesɑu

說文解字

擾也。一曰摩馬。从馬蚤聲。

Sources

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