藥 - Dong Chinese dictionary

yào

medicine

Phonosemantic compound. 艹 represents the meaning and 樂 represents the sound.

Components

艹 Meaning component

cao, cǎo

grass

艹 is a component form of 艸.

樂 Sound component

lè, yuè

happy, music

藥 and 樂 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in older Chinese.藥 /*m-r[e]wk/
樂 /*[r]ˤawk/, /*[r]ˤawk/, /*[ŋ]ˤrawk-s/, /*[ŋ]ˤrawk/

Evolution

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)

Clerical script

Western Jin dynasty (266-316 AD)

Regular script

Modern

Definitions

药 (藥)

yào

drugs, pharmaceuticals, medicine; medicine; drug; substance used for a specific purpose (e.g. poisoning, explosion, fermenting); CL:種|种[zhǒng],服[fù],味[wèi]; to poison

Most common words with 藥