咦
yí

exclamation of surprise

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 夷 represents the sound.

Components

口
口 Meaning component
kǒu, kou mouth
夷
夷 Sound component
yí ancient barbarian tribes

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhanghril

說文解字

南陽謂大呼曰咦。从口夷聲。

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)