盜
dào HSK7

rob

Depicts a gluttonous person drooling (㳄) for food inside of a dish (皿). The meaning later shifted to "steal", "rob", and "bandit".

Components

㳄
㳄 Iconic component
xián spit, saliva

Depicts saliva (氵) coming from a person with an open mouth (欠).

皿
皿 Iconic component
mǐn, mǐng dish

Depicts a dish with food in it.


Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Qin 221-206 BC
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 Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartdawH[d]ˤaw(k)-s steal

說文解字

《說文》：“盜，私利物也。从，欲皿者。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫中華語文知識庫zi.tools
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

盗 dào rob Simplified

Simplified form of 盜. Depicts a gluttonous person drooling (㳄) for food inside of a dish (皿). The meaning later shifted to "steal", "rob", and "bandit".

Components

㳄
㳄 IconicRemnant component
xián spit, saliva

Depicts saliva (氵) coming from a person with an open mouth (欠). Modern form looks like 次.

皿
皿 Iconic component
mǐn, mǐng dish

Depicts a dish with food in it.

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫中華語文知識庫zi.tools
Readings & variants
Unicode