妖魔
yāo​mó

demon

妖 yāo, jiǎo strange

Phonosemantic compound. 女 represents the meaning and 夭 represents the sound.

Components

女
女 Meaning component
nǚ, nü woman
夭
夭 Sound component
yāo, wò, wāi die young

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld Chinese
Zhengzhangqrow
Unicodeqyɛu

Sources

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

魔 mó demon

Phonosemantic compound. 鬼 represents the meaning and 麻 represents the sound.

Components

麻
麻 Sound component
má, ma hemp
鬼
鬼 Meaning component
guǐ ghost

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangmaːl

說文解字

《說文新附》：“魔，鬼也。从鬼，麻聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)