xiāo

night

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components
宀 meaning component

  Meaning component

mián

  

roof

肖 sound component

  Sound component

xiàoxiāo

  

look like

Evolution

宵 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
宵 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
宵 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
宵 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

xiāo

night, evening, dark; night

Most common words with 宵
Freq.
Word
Meaning

通宵

all night

宵禁

night curfew

宵夜

midnight snack

night

夜宵

midnight snack

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[s]ew

sjew

xiāo

night, evening


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 5.6223% of movies

2421st most common character in movies

3131st most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

10

Unicode

U+5BB5

Shuowen

“宵,夜也。从宀,宀下冥也,肖聲。”


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