Chinese Character Wiki
或

huò

or

Original meaning: 

area

Depicts using a weapon (戈) to defend an area (囗) in a boundary (一). Based on the original meaning "area", now written as 域. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
囗 iconic component

囗  Iconic component

wéi

  

surround

Depicts an area of land.

戈 iconic component

戈  Iconic component

gē

  

spear

Depicts a weapon.

一 iconic component

一  Iconic component

yī

  

one

Depicts a boundary.

Evolution

或 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
或 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
或 Clerical script Western Jin dynasty (266-316 AD)

Clerical script

Western Jin dynasty (266-316 AD)
或 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

或  

huò

or, either, else; perhaps, maybe; maybe; perhaps; might; possibly; or

Most common words with 或
Freq.
Word
Meaning

或

maybe

或者

or

或许

perhaps

或是

or

抑或

or

Component uses

Meaning component in 4 characters (0 verified)

惑 閾 阈 馘

Sound component in 5 characters (2 verified)

國 域 惑 蜮 馘

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[ɢ]ʷˤək

hwok

huò

some; or

*[ɢ]ʷrək

hwik

yù

territory


Statistics

HSK level 2

Appears in 90.7416% of movies

258th most common character in movies

160th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

8

Unicode

U+6216

Shuowen

“或，邦也。从囗，从戈以守一。一，地也。域，或又从土。”
Sources

季旭昇《說文新證》p.864

黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》p.40



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