晚班
wǎn​bān

night shift

晚 wǎn night

Phonosemantic compound. 日 represents the meaning and 免 represents the sound.

Components

日
日 Meaning component
rì sun
免
免 Sound component
miǎn (hat), avoid
Change in sound

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 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-SagartmjonXm[o][r]ʔ late

說文解字

《說文》：“晚，莫也。从日，免聲。”

Sources

Character origin
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)

班 bān group

Original meaning: divide

Depicts a knife (刂) cutting a gem into two halves (玨), based on the original meaning "to divide". The meaning later shifted to "division", "group", and "team".

Components

玨
玨 Iconic component
jué two pieces of jade joined together
刂
刂 Iconic component
dāo knife

刂 is a component form of 刀.


Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Xin 9-23 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartpaenpˤ<r>an divide, distribute

說文解字

《說文》：“班，分瑞玉。从玨，从刀。”

Sources

Character origin
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)