熊
xióng HSK5

a bear

← Back to history
approved by Peter Olson · Oct 7, 2020, 03:23 PM · Reviewed by Peter Olson on Oct 7, 2020, 03:23 PM

add source, verify

Changed fields: hint, isVerified, components, customSources

Combination of 能 (bear) and 大 (big).

Components

能
能 Iconic component

Pictograph of a bear.

大
大 Iconic component
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 大 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 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
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarthjuwngC.[ɢ]ʷ(r)əm bear (n.)

說文解字

《說文》:“熊,獸,似豕,山居,冬蟄。从能,炎省聲。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.753
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica