male of animals

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components
牛 meaning component

  Meaning component

niú

  

cow

土 sound component

  Sound component

  

earth

Evolution

牡 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
牡 Bronze script Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
牡 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

male of animals; bolt of door; (of a bird, animal or plant) male; key; hills

Most common words with 牡
Freq.
Word
Meaning

牡蛎

oyster

牡丹

Mudan District of Heze City 菏澤市|菏泽市[Hé​zé​Shì], Shandong

key

牡丹江

Mudanjiang prefecture level city in Heilongjiang province 黑龍江|黑龙江[Hēi​lóng​jiāng] in northeast China

牡丹江市

Mudanjiang prefecture level city in Heilongjiang province 黑龍江|黑龙江[Hēi​lóng​jiāng] in northeast China

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*m(r)uʔ

muwX

male


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 1.2494% of movies

3181st most common character in movies

3001st most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

7

Unicode

U+7261

Shuowen

“牡,畜父也。从牛,土聲。”


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