About
孥 originally denoted children or offspring, and in classical contexts it specifically referred to a man's wife and children. It is a phono-semantic compound: the bottom radical 子 (child) indicates the meaning, while the upper component 奴 (nú, 'slave' or 'servant') provides the sound. Historically, the character often appeared in legal and penal contexts, as collective punishment could implicate a criminal's 孥 (family). Today it has faded from everyday speech, surviving as a classical term in historical literature. The character's composition, 奴 phonetic over 子 radical, is unchanged in both simplified and traditional scripts.
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