獸
shòu

beast

← Back to history
approved by cochleoid · Dec 23, 2025, 07:02 AM · Reviewed by cochleoid on Dec 23, 2025, 07:02 AM

I guess maybe these are meaning components referring to hunting rather than an iconic depiction of a hunting scene itself. I think maybe the age of the character hints more that it was a literal depiction? Feel free to correct if I'm mistaken.

Changed fields: hint, originalMeaning, isVerified, components, customSources, strokeDataSimp, fragmentsSimp, historicalImages

Original meaning: to hunt

A depiction of a hunting scene composed of a hunting tool 單 and a dog 犬. The meaning later shifted to refer to the animals hunted. The original form of 狩.

Components

單
單 IconicRemnant component
Distinguishing component
犬
犬 Iconic component

animal

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
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 Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartsyuwHs.tʰu(ʔ)-s (wild) animal

說文解字

《說文》：“獸，守備者。从嘼，从犬。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫字源 p1270
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)