每
měi HSK3

every

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approved by inralback19 · Oct 22, 2025, 01:51 AM · Reviewed by Prismcool on Oct 22, 2025, 02:00 PM

meaning

Changed fields: hint

Original meaning: young woman of marriageable age

Pictograph of a woman (母) with a hairpin in her hair. In ancient China, women of marriageable age wore a hairpin. Based on the original meaning "young woman of marriageable age". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

◎
◎ Iconic component
characterless component

Depicts a hairpin.

母
母 Iconic component
mǔ mother

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Spring and Autumn ~700 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartmwojXmˤəʔ each

說文解字

《說文》：“，艸盛上出也。从屮，母聲。”

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)