念咒
niàn​zhòu

chant

念 niàn think of, ready

Phonosemantic compound. 心 represents the meaning and 今 represents the sound.

Components

心
心 Meaning component
xīn, xin heart
今
今 Sound component
jīn now
Change in sound

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 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 Qin 221-206 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
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

Component uses

Sound (1 of 6 verified)

捻鲶稔埝鯰唸

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

谂

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartnemHnˤim-s think of

說文解字

《說文》：“念，常思也。从心，今聲。”

Sources

Character origin
李学勤《字源》p.927
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

咒 zhòu curse

Derived from 祝, with the 礻 (show) component being replaced by 口 (mouth) component when the meaning extended to "curse". Depicts a kneeling person (卩) opening their mouth (口) to pray for disaster to happen on someone.

Components

口
口 Meaning component
kǒu, kou mouth
口
口 Iconic component
kǒu, kou mouth
卩
卩 Iconic component
jié person kneeling

Modern form looks like 几.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 卩 than it was in ancient scripts.

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangtjus

Sources

Character origin
Chinese Language Stack Exchange漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang