kǒu​shào HSK7

whistle

kǒu, kou mouth

Pictograph of a mouth.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
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 Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (2 of 5 verified)

Unknown (1 of 2 verified)

Simplified (1)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartkhuwXkʰˤ(r)oʔ mouth

說文解字

《說文》:“口,人所以言食也。象形。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica

shào whistle

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Meaning component
kǒu, kou mouth
Sound component
xiào look like

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangsreːws
sʰews
sew

說文解字

不容也。从口肖聲。

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica