乃
nǎi HSK7

then

Original meaning: breast

Possibly depicts a woman standing sideways with her breasts protruding. Based on the original meaning "breast", now written as 奶. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
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
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (3 of 7 verified)

仍奶扔氖艿鼐尕

Iconic (1)

奶

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartnojXnˤə(ŋ)ʔ your
nojXnˤəʔ then

說文解字

《說文》：“ 乃，曳詞之難也。象气之出難。，古文乃。，籀文乃。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.389漢語多功能字庫徐中舒《甲骨文字典》p.500-501
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)