Definify.com

Definition 2024


Translingual

Han character

(radical 38 +2, 5 strokes, cangjie input 女水 (VE), four-corner 47440, composition)

Derived characters

Descendants

References

  • KangXi: page 254, character 26
  • Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 6039
  • Dae Jaweon: page 517, character 3
  • Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 2, page 1024, character 7
  • Unihan data for U+5974

Chinese

simp. and trad.

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character
Oracle bone script Bronze inscriptions Large seal script Small seal script
Characters in the same phonetic series () (Zhengzhang, 2003) 
Old Chinese
*rnaː
*rnaː
*rnaː
*rnaː, *na
*rnaː, *naː, *naːs
*rnaː, *na
*rnaːs, *nas, *snas, *nas
*rnaːw
*rnaːw
*n̥ʰaːŋʔ, *naː
*naː
*naː, *naːʔ
*naː
*naː
*naːʔ
*naːʔ
*naːʔ, *naːs
*na
*na
*naʔ, *nas
*naʔ
*hnjas
*nja, *njas
*nja, *njaʔ, *njas
*nja, *njas
*nja
*nja
*njaʔ
*njaʔ

Ideogrammic compound (會意) :  (woman) +  (hand) – a woman with hands at the back (bronze inscriptions).

The oracle bone script forms are pictographic (象形) , showing a woman with hands crossed at the back, as opposed to (OC *naʔ, *nas) which depicts a woman clasping her hands in front of the body.

Pronunciation



  • Dialectal data
Variety Location
Mandarin Beijing /nu³⁵/
Harbin /mu²⁴/
Tianjin /nu⁴⁵/
Jinan /mu⁴²/
Qingdao /nu⁴²/
Zhengzhou /nu⁴²/
Xi'an /nou²⁴/
Xining /nv̩²⁴/
Yinchuan /nu⁵³/
Lanzhou /lu⁵³/
Ürümqi /mu⁵¹/
Wuhan /nəu²¹³/
Chengdu /nu³¹/
Guiyang /nu²¹/
Kunming /nu³¹/
Nanjing /lu²⁴/
Hefei /lu⁵⁵/
Jin Taiyuan /nəu¹¹/
Pingyao /nəu¹³/
Hohhot /nəu³¹/
Wu Shanghai /nu²³/
Suzhou /nəu³¹/
Hangzhou /no²¹³/
Wenzhou /nɤu³¹/
Hui Shexian /lu⁴⁴/
Tunxi /ləu⁴⁴/
Xiang Changsha /ləu¹³/
Xiangtan /nəɯ¹²/
Gan Nanchang /lu⁴⁵/
Hakka Meixian /nu¹¹/
Taoyuan /mu¹¹/
Cantonese Guangzhou /nou²¹/
Nanning /nu²¹/
Hong Kong /nou²¹/
Min Xiamen (Min Nan) /lɔ³⁵/
Fuzhou (Min Dong) /nu⁵³/
Jian'ou (Min Bei) /nu³³/
Shantou (Min Nan) /nõu⁵⁵/
Haikou (Min Nan) /nu³¹/
/nɔu³¹/

Rime
Character
Reading # 1/1
Initial () (8)
Final () (23)
Tone (調) Level (Ø)
Openness (開合) Open
Division () I
Fanqie
Reconstructions
Zhengzhang
Shangfang
/nuo/
Pan
Wuyun
/nuo/
Shao
Rongfen
/no/
Edwin
Pulleyblank
/nɔ/
Li
Rong
/no/
Wang
Li
/nu/
Bernard
Karlgren
/nuo/
Expected
Mandarin
Reflex
Baxter-Sagart system 1.1 (2014)
Character
Reading # 1/1
Modern
Beijing
(Pinyin)
Middle
Chinese
‹ nu ›
Old
Chinese
/*nˤa/
English slave

Notes for Old Chinese notations in the Baxter-Sagart system:

* Parentheses "()" indicate uncertain presence;
* Square brackets "[]" indicate uncertain identity, e.g. *[t] as coda may in fact be *-t or *-p;
* Angle brackets "<>" indicate infix;
* Hyphen "-" indicates morpheme boundary;

* Period "." indicates syllable boundary.
Zhengzhang system (2003)
Character
Reading # 1/1
No. 9600
Phonetic
component
Rime
group
Rime
subdivision
0
Corresponding
MC rime
Old
Chinese
/*naː/

Definitions

  1. slave; servant
  2. (polite) I
  3. (derogatory) a person associated with a particular identity or trait
  4. to enslave

Synonyms

  • (I):
Dialectal synonyms of (“I”)
Variety Location Words
Classical Chinese
Formal (Written Standard Chinese)
Mandarin Beijing
Jinan
Xi'an
Wuhan
Chengdu
Yangzhou
Hefei
Cantonese Guangzhou
Hong Kong
Taishan
Yangjiang
Gan Nanchang
Hakka Meixian 𠊎
Miaoli (N. Sixian) 𠊎
Liudui (S. Sixian) 𠊎
Hsinchu (Hailu) 𠊎
Dongshi (Dabu) 𠊎
Zhuolan (Raoping) 𠊎
Yunlin (Zhao'an) 𠊎
Jin Taiyuan
Min Bei Jian'ou
Min Dong Fuzhou
Min Nan Xiamen
Taipei
Chaozhou
Wu Shanghai 阿拉
Suzhou
Wenzhou
Ningbo 我儂、像我
Xiang Changsha
Shuangfeng

Compounds


Japanese

Kanji

(common “Jōyō” kanji)

a thing, an object; (derogatory, familiar) a person

Readings


Korean

Hanja

(no) (hangeul , revised no, McCune-Reischauer no)

  1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

Vietnamese

Han character

(, no, , nọ)

  1. (colloquial) he, she, it

Usage notes

  • Chữ Nôm.
  • This is the common form of this character. The regular form is .
  • The term is de facto used to refer to any animal (including the human) in the third person, in a disrespectful manner. The use of the term to translate the English it, or to refer to an inanimate object, is rather artificial, and mostly found in awkward (but common) translation of other languages.

References