wéi​wù

materialistic

wéi only

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Meaning component
kǒu, kou mouth
Sound component
zhuī, cuī, wéi bird

Character Evolution

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 Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Spring and Autumn 771-476 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

Simplified (1)

Sound (1)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartywijɢʷij (< *ɢʷuj?)only

說文解字

《說文》:“唯,諾也。从口,隹聲。”

Sources

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

wù, wu thing

Original meaning: varicolored cow

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "variety", depicting the variety of colors on a cow. Later the meaning shifted to "things".

Components

Meaning component
niú cow
Sound component
wù, mò must not

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 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 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
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Jin 266-316 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartmjutC.mut thing

說文解字

《說文》:“物,萬物也。牛為大物,天地之數,起於牽牛,故从牛,勿聲。”

Sources

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