奴
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TranslingualEdit
Han characterEdit
奴 (Kangxi radical 38, 女+2, 5 strokes, cangjie input 女水 (VE), four-corner 47440, composition ⿰女又)
Derived charactersEdit
DescendantsEdit
ReferencesEdit
- KangXi: page 254, character 26
- Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 6039
- Dae Jaweon: page 517, character 3
- Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 2, page 1024, character 7
- Unihan data for U+5974
ChineseEdit
| trad. | 奴 | |
|---|---|---|
| simp. # | 奴 | |
| alternative forms | 㚢 | |
Glyph originEdit
| Historical forms of the character 奴 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shang | Western Zhou | Warring States | Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han) | Liushutong (compiled in Ming) |
| Oracle bone script | Bronze inscriptions | Chu slip and silk script | Small seal script | Transcribed ancient scripts |
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| Old Chinese | |
|---|---|
| 拿 | *rnaː |
| 拏 | *rnaː |
| 詉 | *rnaː |
| 蒘 | *rnaː, *na |
| 笯 | *rnaː, *naː, *naːs |
| 挐 | *rnaː, *na |
| 絮 | *rnaːs, *nas, *snas, *nas |
| 呶 | *rnaːw |
| 怓 | *rnaːw |
| 帑 | *n̥ʰaːŋʔ, *naː |
| 奴 | *naː |
| 砮 | *naː, *naːʔ |
| 駑 | *naː |
| 孥 | *naː |
| 努 | *naːʔ |
| 弩 | *naːʔ |
| 怒 | *naːʔ, *naːs |
| 袽 | *na |
| 帤 | *na |
| 女 | *naʔ, *nas |
| 籹 | *naʔ |
| 恕 | *hnjas |
| 如 | *nja, *njas |
| 茹 | *nja, *njaʔ, *njas |
| 洳 | *nja, *njas |
| 鴽 | *nja |
| 蕠 | *nja |
| 汝 | *njaʔ |
| 肗 | *njaʔ |
Ideogrammic compound (會意): 女 (“woman”) + 又 (“hand”) – a hand capturing and ordering a woman around. 女 (OC *naʔ, *nas) may also be phonetic.
Some oracle bone script forms (not depicted above) are pictographic (象形), showing a person (probably a woman) with hands crossed at the back, as opposed to 女 which depicts a woman clasping her hands in front of the body.
EtymologyEdit
Uncertain.
- Possibly cognate with Mru nar (“servant”) & Awa-Khumi Chin tana (Löffler, 1960);
- Ferlus (1999) relates this to 女 (OC *naʔ), which has semantic parallel, especially among foreign loans (e.g. 嬯 (OC *dɯː, “servant, slave woman”) which is possibly from Austroasiatic).
- Unger (1990) groups 奴 (OC *naː) as well as 努 (OC *naːʔ, “to tense, to exert”), 弩 (OC *naːʔ, “crossbow”), & 怒 (OC *naːs, “angry”), in a word-family with the basic meaning "tense", hence 奴 (OC *naː)'s meaning "press into service".
PronunciationEdit
DefinitionsEdit
奴
- slave; servant
- (humble, polite) I
- (derogatory) a person associated with a particular identity or trait
- to enslave
SynonymsEdit
- (I):
CompoundsEdit
Derived terms from 奴
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JapaneseEdit
KanjiEdit
奴
- a thing, an object; (derogatory, familiar) a person
ReadingsEdit
- Go-on: ぬ (nu)←ぬ (nu, historical)
- Kan-on: ど (do, Jōyō)←ど (do, historical)
- Kun: やっこ (yakko, 奴); やつ (yatsu, 奴); め (me, 奴)
- Nanori: ぬい (nui)
Etymology 1Edit
| Kanji in this term |
|---|
| 奴 |
| やつ Grade: S |
| kun’yomi |
| For pronunciation and definitions of 奴 – see the following entry. | ||
| ||
| (This term, 奴, is an alternative spelling of the above term.) |
Etymology 2Edit
| Kanji in this term |
|---|
| 奴 |
| やっこ Grade: S |
| kun’yomi |
| For pronunciation and definitions of 奴 – see the following entry. | ||
| ||
| (This term, 奴, is an alternative spelling of the above term.) |
Etymology 3Edit
| Kanji in this term |
|---|
| 奴 |
| め Grade: S |
| kun’yomi |
| For pronunciation and definitions of 奴 – see the following entry. | ||
| ||
| (This term, 奴, is an alternative (uncommon) spelling of the above term.) |
KoreanEdit
HanjaEdit
VietnameseEdit
Han characterEdit
奴: Hán Nôm readings: nô, no, nó, nọ
- (colloquial) he, she, it
Usage notesEdit
- Chữ Nôm.
- This is the common form of this character. The regular form is 伮.
- 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.