gǔ
old
Original meaning:
firm, solid
Depicts a shield. Based on the original meaning "firm, solid", which is now written as 固. The current meaning "old" is a phonetic loan.
Components
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernComponent uses
Meaning component in 1 character (0 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*kˤaʔ | kuX | gǔ | ancient |
Statistics
HSK level 3
Appears in 37.3218% of movies
888th most common character in movies
509th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 5 |
Unicode | U+53E4 |
Shuowen | “古,故也。从十口。識前言者也。,古文古。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.154
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