贫道 Origin — Chinese Character Wiki

pín poor Simplified

Money 贝 that must be split 分; 分 also provides the pronunciation

Components

分 Sound Meaning component

fēn, fèn, fen divide

贝 Meaning component

bèi sea shell

Sources

Readings & variants: Unicode

dào, dao path

Phonosemantic compound. 辶 represents the meaning and 首 represents the sound.

Components

辶 Meaning component

chuò walk

辶 is a component form of 辵.

首 Sound component

shǒu head

Change in sound

道 and 首 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
道 *lˤuʔ-s
首 *l̥uʔ-s

Character Evolution

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Sound (1)

導

Meaning (1)

導

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	dawH	lˤuʔ-s	show the way
	dawX	[kə.l]ˤuʔ	way

說文解字

所行道也。从辵从𩠐。一達謂之道。

Sources

Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

pín poor Traditional

Money 貝 that must be split 分; 分 also provides the pronunciation

Components

分 Sound Meaning component

fēn, fèn, fen divide

貝 Meaning component

bèi sea shell

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

▼ More ▲ Less

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	bin	[b]rə[n]	poor
Zhengzhang		brɯn
Unicode	bhyin

說文解字

財分少也。从貝从分，分亦聲。

Sources

Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

贫 pín poor Simplified

Components

Sources

道 dào, dao path

Components

Character Evolution

Component uses

Sound (1)

Meaning (1)

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

貧 pín poor Traditional

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

pín poor Simplified

dào, dao path

pín poor Traditional