楮
chǔ

mulberry

Phonosemantic compound. 木 represents the meaning and 者 represents the sound. Originally written as 者, which is a pictograph of a tree with paper mulberry leaves.

Components

木
木 Meaning component
mù tree
者
者 SoundIconic component
zhě one who...

Depicts a tree with paper mulberry leaves.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
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 Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangtaːʔ
tʰaʔ

說文解字

《說文》:“楮,穀也。从木,者聲。柠,楮或从宁。”

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica