a snail

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components
虫 meaning component

  Meaning component

chóng

  

bug, insect

咼 sound component

  Sound component

guōwāi

  

chat

Evolution

蝸 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
蝸 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

() 

a snail, Eulota callizoma; snail; Taiwan pr. [guā]; see 蝸牛|蜗牛[wō​niú]

Most common words with 蝸
Freq.
Word
Meaning

蜗牛

snail

snail

蜗居

snail's home

蜗杆

worm (mechanical engineering)

蜗行

snail's pace

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*k.rˤoj (dialect: *k.rˤ- > *kˤr-)

kwae

snail


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

3723rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

14

Simplified

Unicode

U+8778

Shuowen

“蝸,蝸蠃也。从虫,咼聲。”


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