chǒu

clown

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components
酉 sound component

  Sound component

yǒu

  

wine

鬼 meaning component

  Meaning component

guǐ

  

ghost

Evolution

醜 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
醜 Bronze script Spring and Autumn (771-476 BC)

Bronze script

Spring and Autumn (771-476 BC)
醜 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

() 

chǒu

ugly looking, homely; disgraceful; shameful; ugly

Most common words with 醜
Freq.
Word
Meaning

clown

小丑

clown

丑闻

scandal

丑陋

ugly

丑恶

ugly

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*t.qʰuʔ

tsyhuwX

chǒu

ugly; evil

*t.qʰuʔ

tsyhuwX

chǒu

category


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 25.5486% of movies

1272nd most common character in movies

1901st most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

16

Simplified

Unicode

U+919C

Shuowen

“醜,可惡也。从鬼,酉聲。”


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