曹冲
Cáo Chōng

Cao Chong

曹 cáo plaintiff and defendant

Phonosemantic compound. 㯥 represents the sound and 曰 represents the meaning. Depicts a pair (㯥) of people speaking (曰) against each other, i.e. a plaintiff and a defendant. The meaning later expanded to "of the same generation".

Components

㯥
㯥 SoundMeaning component
cáo, zāo pair

The character 東 was originally a pictograph of a basket. This component is a pair of 東 merged together.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 㯥 than it was in ancient scripts.
曰
曰 Meaning component
yuē say

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
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 of 8 verified)

遭糟槽嘈漕螬艚蹧

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartdzawN-tsˤu come together; pair

說文解字

《說文》：，獄之兩曹也。在廷東，从，治事者，从曰。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫李学勤《字源》p.417
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

冲 chōng, chòng flush, wash away Simplified

Phonosemantic compound. 冫 represents the meaning and 中 represents the sound. Simplified form of 沖 and 衝.

Components

冫
冫 Simplified component
bīng ice

Simplified from the traditional 氵 (water) component.

中
中 Sound component
zhōng, zhòng central

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode

沖 chōng, chòng flush, wash away Traditional

Phonosemantic compound. 氵 represents the meaning and 中 represents the sound.

Components

氵
氵 Meaning component
shui, shuǐ water

氵 is a component form of 水.

中
中 Sound component
zhōng, zhòng central

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartdrjuwng[d]ruŋ sound of cutting ice

說文解字

《說文》：“沖，涌搖也。从水、中。讀若動。”

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)