tǎo
to discuss
Original meaning:
manage, govern
Depicts using speech (言) and one's hands (寸) to manage or govern. The meaning later shifted to "discuss" and "ask for".
Evolution

Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[t]ʰˤuʔ | thawX | tǎo | examine; denounce |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
Appears in 66.5065% of movies
632nd most common character in movies
833rd most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 10 |
Simplified | |
Unicode | U+8A0E |
Shuowen | “討,治也。从言,从寸。” |
Sources
李学勤《字源》p.193-194
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

