About
The character 孥 refers to children or family members, especially a man's wife and children in classical texts. It combines the semantic radical 子 (child) at the bottom, indicating its meaning related to offspring, with the upper component 奴 (nú, "slave") functioning as a phonetic element. Historically, it often appeared in legal contexts, such as collective punishment where a criminal's family (孥) was implicated. While now primarily a literary term found in historical writing, its structure remains consistent, with no simplified or traditional variants altering the combination of the slave phonetic and child radical.