坤
kūn

earth

Phonosemantic compound. 申 represents the meaning and 土 represents the sound. Simplified form of 堃.

Components

申
申 Meaning component
shēn to extend
土
土 Sound component
tǔ earth

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Wu) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartkhwon[kʰ]ˤu[n]earth (trigram or hexagram)
Zhengzhangkʰuːn
Unicodekuən

說文解字

地也。《易》之卦也。从土从申。土位在申。

Sources

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