朔望 Origin — Chinese Character Wiki

shuòwàng

syzygy

shuò first day of lunar month

Phonosemantic compound. 月 represents the meaning and 屰 represents the sound.

Components

月 Meaning component

yuè, yue moon

屰 Sound component

nì, pò, jí disobedient

Change in sound

朔 and 屰 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
朔 *s-ŋrak
屰 *ŋrak

Character Evolution

Bronze form — Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Sound (2 of 6 verified)

塑嗍槊蒴搠愬

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

溯

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	sraewk	s-ŋrak	1st day of month

說文解字

《說文》：“朔，月一日始蘇也。从月，屰聲。”

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)

wàng, wang to look at

Pictograph of a person standing up (𡈼) and gazing at the moon (月). 亡 is a sound component.

Components

亡 Sound component

wáng death

月 Iconic component

yuè, yue moon

𡈼 Iconic component

tǐng, tíng, zhēng stand upright

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	mjang	maŋ	look at from a distance
	mjangH	maŋ-s	look at from a distance

說文解字

《說文》：“望，出亡在外，望其還也。从亡，朢省聲。”

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)

朔 shuò first day of lunar month

Components

Character Evolution

Component uses

Sound (2 of 6 verified)

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

望 wàng, wang to look at

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

shuò first day of lunar month

wàng, wang to look at