About
The character "觜" is structurally composed of "角" representing horn and "此" acting as a phonetic component, initially denoting the beak of a bird due to its pointed shape. Its semantic scope expanded to refer generally to the mouths of animals and humans, while in ancient astronomy it was adopted as the name for a constellation. Over time, the character's primary meaning of "mouth" was largely supplanted by the later form "嘴", leaving "觜" chiefly employed in astronomical contexts such as "觜宿".
Etymology Hide
