Chinese Character Wiki
曷

hé

why? what? where?

Original meaning: 

cut fruit

Depicts a type of fruit with something cut off from it. The component that depicts the fruit was later reanalyzed as phonetic component 匃. Based on the original meaning "cut fruit". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
◎ iconic component

◎  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Depicts something that has been cut from the fruit.

匃 sound component

匃  Sound component

gài

  

beggar

Originally depicted a type of fruit. Later reanalyzed as phonetic component 匃.

Evolution

曷 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
曷 Clerical script Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Clerical script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
曷 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
曷 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

曷  

hé

why? what? where?; why; how; when; what; where

Component uses

Sound component in 14 characters (3 verified)

喝 渴 褐 揭 歇 葛 竭 遏 謁 谒 蝎 碣 羯 猲

Unknown component in 1 character (0 verified)

藒

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[g]ˤat

hat

hé

what


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

5256th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+66F7

Shuowen

“曷，何也。从曰，匃聲。”


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