默
mò HSK4

silent

Phonosemantic compound. 黑 represents the sound and 犬 represents the meaning.

Components

黑
黑 Sound component
hēi black
Change in sound
犬
犬 Meaning component
quǎn dog

Dogs are not able to speak.

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Jin 266-316 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

《說文》：“默，犬暫逐人也。从犬，黑聲。讀若墨。”

Sources

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