āi

Components

Meaning component
nǚ, nü woman

woman

Sound component
yǐ, xián particle of completed action

Character Evolution

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

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangqɯː
qʰlɯ

說文解字

戲也。从女矣聲。一曰卑賤名也。

Sources

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