楚
chǔ HSK2

clear

Original meaning: bush

Phonosemantic compound. 林 represents the meaning and 疋 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "bush". The meaning later shifted to "distinct" and "clear".

Components

林
林 Meaning component
lín forest
Change in meaning
林 hints at the original meaning of 楚, "bush", which is no longer the most common meaning of 楚 in modern Mandarin.
疋
疋 Sound component
pǐ, shū, yǎ foot
Change in sound

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Spring and Autumn 771-476 BC
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
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (1 of 2 verified)

憷礎

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

憷

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarttsrhjoX[s.r̥]aʔ arrange in order
tsrhjoXs.r̥aʔ thorns
tsrhjoXs.r̥aʔ name of a state

說文解字

《說文》：“楚，叢木。一名荊也。从林，疋聲。”

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)