吳
Wú

one of warring states

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approved by Peter Olson · Nov 14, 2021, 09:21 PM · Reviewed by Peter Olson on Nov 14, 2021, 09:21 PM

Depicts a person standing up.

Changed fields: components

Original meaning: to shout

Pictograph of a person with their head tilted (夨) yelling with an open mouth (口).

Components

口
口 Iconic component
大
大 Iconic component

Depicts a person standing up.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 大 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Seal form
Seal Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 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
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartnguŋʷˤa shout; name of a state

說文解字

《說文》：“吳，姓也，亦郡也。一曰吳，大言也。从夨、口。，古文如此。”

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)