炮
pàobāopáo HSK6

large gun, cannon

Phonosemantic compound. 火 represents the meaning and 包 represents the sound.

Components

火
火 Meaning component
huǒ fire
包
包 Sound component
bāo wrap

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangpʰruːs
bruː

說文解字

《說文》:“炮,毛炙肉也。从火,包聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica