已婚
yǐ​hūn

married

已 yǐ already

Original meaning: a type of snake creature

Derived from 巳. Depicts a snake-like creature. Based on the original meaning "a type of snake creature". The current meaning "already" is a phonetic loan.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Regular Modern

Component uses

Simplified (1)

导

Sound (1)

异

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartyiXɢ(r)əʔ cease; already

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫季旭昇《說文新證》p.979
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica

婚 hūn get married

Phonosemantic compound. 女 represents the meaning and 昏 represents the sound.

Components

女
女 Meaning component
nǚ, nü woman
昏
昏 Sound component
hūn, hún twilight

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartxwonm̥ˤu[n] marriage

說文解字

《說文》：“婚，婦家也。禮，娶婦以昏時。婦人陰也，故曰婚。从女，从昏，昏亦聲。，籀文婚。”

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)