盍
hé

what? why not?

Original meaning: lid

Pictograph of a lid on top of a vessel. The semantic component 皿 (dish) was added later to avoid confusion with the unrelated character 去 (go away). Based on the original meaning "lid", now written as 蓋. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

◎
◎ Iconic component
characterless component

Depicts a lid over a vessel. Not related to 去 (go away).

皿
皿 Meaning component
mǐn, mǐng dish

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (2 of 8 verified)

盖磕瞌阖嗑溘蓋闔

Simplified (1)

盖

Iconic (1)

奄

Remnant (1)

奄

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

豔

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagarthapm-[k]ˤap thatch, cover (v.)

說文解字

《說文》：“，覆也。从血、大。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫季旭昇《說文新證》p.423
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)