mǒu HSK3

certain thing or person

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approved by Marcus Ngai · Mar 29, 2026, 08:31 AM · Reviewed by Marcus Ngai on Mar 29, 2026, 08:31 AM

original meaning

Changed fields: originalMeaning

Original meaning: plum

Depicts a sweet () fruit in a tree (). Based on the original meaning "plum", now written as . The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

Iconic component
gān sweetness
Iconic component
tree

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartmuwXməʔ so and so; a certain

說文解字

《說文》:“某,酸果也。从木,从甘,闕。槑,古文某从口。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica