suān
sour, tart
Phonosemantic compound. 酉 represents the meaning and 夋 represents the sound.
Evolution

Bronze script
Warring States (475-221 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
suān
tart, sour; acid; stiff; spoiled; sour; tart; sick at heart; grieved; sore; aching; pedantic; impractical; to make sarcastic remarks about sb; an acid
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[s]ˤor | swan | suān | sour |
Statistics
HSK level 4
Appears in 14.3521% of movies
1684th most common character in movies
1456th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 14 |
Unicode | U+9178 |
Shuowen | “酸,酢也。从酉,夋聲。關東謂酢曰酸。,籀文酸从畯。” |
Sources
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