móu
component #7,611

Meanings

  1. 1 to plan
  2. 2 to seek
  3. 3 scheme

Examples

Yīnmóu
conspiracy; plot
Móushēng
to make a living

Tips

usage
speech + certain — planning through discussion about certain matters

Components

radical
yán
speech (radical form of 言)
The speech radical on the left marks as a verbal activity — plans and schemes are talked through, conferred about, hashed out in conversation. It indexes with discuss, chat, argue, calculate — the family of strategic and deliberative speech.
phonetic
mǒu
a certain (here phonetic)
supplies the sound mǒu → móu, just a tone shift. The picture of (sweet) over (tree) originally meant a sweet plum, no semantic role here — pure phonetic borrowing. Same phonetic surfaces in matchmaker, coal, berry — all méi/mǒu syllables.

Stroke Order

móu