探 - Dong Chinese dictionary

tàn

explore, find

Phonosemantic compound. 扌 represents the meaning and 罙 represents the sound.

Components

扌 Meaning component

shou, shǒu

hand

扌 is a component form of 手.

罙 Sound component

shēn

deep

探 and 罙 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in older Chinese.探 /*l̥ˤ[ə]m/
罙 /*[l̥][ə]m/

Evolution

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)

Clerical script

Cao Wei (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)

Regular script

Modern

Definitions

tàn

find, locate; search, grope for; to explore; to search out; to scout; to visit; to stretch forward

Most common words with 探

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese	Middle Chinese	Pinyin	Gloss
*l̥ˤ[ə]m	thom	tān	put the hand into and test

Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 46.7403% of movies

543rd most common character in movies

917th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Sources