Definitions
name of a tribe; socks; stockings
Etymology
About
The character 靺 (mò) is historically significant, most notably as the first character in the name for the Mohe, an ancient Tungusic people of Manchuria. Structurally, it is a phono-semantic compound. The semantic radical 革 (gé), meaning leather or hide, indicates its original concrete meaning: a type of ancient footwear, such as a leather sock or foot wrapping. The phonetic component 末 (mò) provides the pronunciation. While its literal sense as a leather garment survives in specialized texts, the character's primary role shifted to transliterating the name of this northeastern tribal group. This repurposing exemplifies a common linguistic practice of using material-based characters for phonetic transcription of foreign names.