Trace Panda
■ radical

tái

platform

How it’s built

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 以 represents the sound. 口 (mouth) indicates that the character is only "mouthed", i.e. only used for its phonetic value. In simplified Chinese 台 is also used to mean "table; counter", while in traditional Chinese this meaning is written with a separate character 檯.

meaning

mouth

sound

use; by means of The pronunciation of 台 was similar to 以 in old Chinese, but they no longer sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes.

Appears in

Characters that use as a component, most common first.

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