Definitions

female personal name (archaic)

Etymology

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Semantic: Phonetic:

About

is a phonosemantic compound: (woman) on the left signals the character's association with a female person, while on the right indicates the pronunciation. Historically, the character appears almost exclusively in the proper name Daji (妲己), the infamous concubine of King Zhou of Shang, who is traditionally blamed for the fall of the Shang Dynasty. Tied entirely to this figure, the character has no independent meanings or verbal uses in general vocabulary, it simply records the name of a notable woman using a common phonetic marker of the era.

Etymology Hide

Seal etymology image
Seal Shuowen (~100 AD)
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Simplified Modern