寡
guǎ HSK7

widowed, alone

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approved by Prismcool · Jun 20, 2023, 06:09 AM · Reviewed by Peter Olson on Jul 28, 2023, 06:21 PM

Added etymology for this character.

Changed fields: gloss, hint, originalMeaning, isVerified, components, customSources

Original meaning: live alone

Depicts a person living alone in a house (宀). The decorative strokes around the 頁 component corrupted into the unrelated 刀.

Components

宀
宀 Iconic component
頁
頁 Iconic component

Used here to depict a person.

◎
◎ Unknown component

Originally depicted decorative strokes around 頁. Modern form looks like unrelated 刀.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 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 Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartkwaeX[C.k]ʷˤraʔ few

說文解字

《說文》：“寡，少也。从宀，从頒。頒，分賦也，故為少。”

Sources

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