耎
ruǎnnuò

flexible, soft, weak

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approved by Peter Olson · Jan 14, 2022, 06:04 PM · Reviewed by Peter Olson on Jan 14, 2022, 06:04 PM

strokes

Changed fields: strokeDataSimp, fragmentsSimp, historicalImages

Original meaning: become wet

Same in origin to 需. Pictograph of a person (大) standing under the rain (雨), representing the meaning "become wet", now written as 濡. The current meaning is a phonetic loan. The 雨 (rain) component was later replaced with the phonetic component 而.

Components

而
而 Sound component
ér and

Originally 雨 (rain). Later replaced with phonetic component 而.

Change in sound
大
大 Iconic component
dà, dài big

Depicts a person getting wet.

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangnjonʔ

說文解字

《說文》：“耎，稍前大也。从大，而聲，讀若畏偄。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫劉釗《古文字構形學》p.131
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)