魔芋 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

mó demon

Phonosemantic compound. 鬼 represents the meaning and 麻 represents the sound.

Components

麻 Sound component

má, ma hemp

鬼 Meaning component

guǐ ghost

Character Evolution

Seal form — Seal Shuowen ~100 AD

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Old Chinese
Zhengzhang	maːl

說文解字

《說文新附》：“魔，鬼也。从鬼，麻聲。”

Sources

Character origin: 漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

yù, yú, xū taro

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

Components

艹 Meaning component

cao, cǎo grass

艹 is a component form of 艸.

于 Sound component

yú at

Character Evolution

Bronze form — Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC

Seal form — Seal Shuowen ~100 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	hjuH	[ɢ]ʷ(r)a-s	taro (Colocasia antiquorum?)
Zhengzhang		ɢʷa
		ɢʷas
Unicode	hiò

說文解字

大葉實根，駭人，故謂之芌也。从艸亏聲。

Sources

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