倭
wōwēiwǒ

dwarf

Phonosemantic compound. 亻 represents the meaning and 委 represents the sound.

Components

亻
亻 Meaning component
rén person

亻 is a component form of 人.

委
委 Sound component
wěi bent, winding

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangqoːl
qoːlʔ
qrol

說文解字

順皃。从人委聲。《詩》曰：“周道倭遟。”

Sources

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