nǔ
cross-bow
Phonosemantic compound. 弓 represents the meaning and 奴 represents the sound.
Evolution
Bronze script
Early Warring States (~400 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 弩
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
crossbow | ||
at daggers drawn | ||
crossbow | ||
bow and crossbow | ||
fig. spent force |
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*C.nˤaʔ | nuX | nǔ | crossbow |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
3470th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 8 |
Unicode | U+5F29 |
Shuowen | “弩，弓有臂者。《周禮》四弩：夾弩、庾弩、唐弩、大弩。从弓，奴聲。” |
Sources
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