刮刮卡
guā​guā​kǎ

scratchcard

刮 guā to scrape, shave

Phonosemantic compound. 刂 represents the meaning and 𠯑 represents the sound.

Components

𠯑
𠯑 Sound component
guā block the mouth
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 𠯑 than it was in ancient scripts.
刂
刂 Meaning component
dāo knife

刂 is a component form of 刀.

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartkwaet[kʷˤ]r[a]t scrape (v.)

說文解字

《說文》：“刮，掊把也。从刀，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)

卡 kǎ stuck

Origin unclear, but typically explained as being stuck between something above (上) and something below (下). The uses of 卡 to mean "card" or "calorie" are foreign phonetic loans.

Components

上
上 Iconic component
shàng, shang up
下
下 Iconic component
xià, xia under

Component uses

Sound (0 of 3 verified)

咔胩佧

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode