clod of earth

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Meaning component
earth
Sound component
able to

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangkʰaːlʔ
kʰaːls

說文解字

坎坷也。梁國寕陵有坷亭。从土可聲。

Sources

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