愛
ài HSK1

love

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approved by Peter Olson · Jan 6, 2021, 04:58 PM · Reviewed by Peter Olson on Jan 6, 2021, 04:58 PM

verify, add source

Changed fields: hint, isVerified, components, customSources

Originally a phonosemantic compound, with 旡 representing the sound and 心 (heart) representing the meaning. Later the 夂 component was added.

Components

旡
旡 Sound component
Change in sound
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 旡 than it was in ancient scripts.
心
心 Meaning component
夂
夂 Unknown component

夂 is a component form of 止. The purpose of this component is unclear.

Character Evolution

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 Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Jin 266-316 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagart'ojH[q]ˤə[p]-s to love; to grudge (< ‘draw close to oneself’?)

說文解字

《說文》:“愛,行皃。从夊,聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica