漏
lòu HSK5

leak

Originally written as 屚, which depicts rainwater (雨) leaking through a house roof (屋). The 氵 (water) component was added later to clarify the meaning.

Components

氵
氵 Meaning component
shui, shuǐ water

氵 is a component form of 水.

屚
屚 SoundIconic component
lòu to leak

Depicts rainwater (雨) leaking through a house roof (屋).

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 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

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartluwH[Nə-r]ˤok-s leak (v.)

說文解字

《說文》:“漏,以銅受水刻節,晝夜百刻。从水,屚聲。”

Sources

Character origin
李学勤《字源》p.1011, 1025許進雄《新編進階甲骨文字典: 甲骨文發現120周年紀念版》p.204
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica