牡

牡 (Kangxi radical 93, 牛+3, 7 strokes, cangjie input 竹手土 (HQG), four-corner 2451₀, composition ⿰牛土)

• 𪋂, 𧚒

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 697, character 11
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 19933
• Dae Jaweon: page 1110, character 1
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 3, page 1801, character 2
• Unihan data for U+7261

Historical forms of the character 牡
Shang	Western Zhou	Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)	Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Oracle bone script	Bronze inscriptions	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

Ideogrammic compound (會意／会意) : 牛 (“cattle”) + 丄. Various explanations exist, some propose 丄 (here unrelated to 上) depicts a penis to represent “male”. Later 丄 came to be written 土. See also the etymology of this character.

Austroasiatic (Schuessler, 2007). Compare Proto-Mon-Khmer *ɟm(oo)l (“male”) (whence Khmer ឈ្មោល (chmool, “to be male”)), Old Mon jmūr ~ jmur (“male (elephant)”), Proto-Waic *(k)mɔj (“(wild) ox; buffalo”), Proto-Vietic *mɔːlʔ (“person; human being”) (whence Vietnamese mọi (“savage; barbarian”), Muong mõl (“human being”)).

An oracle bone graph for this word shows a vertical stick on a horizontal ground, possibly because it had been intended for an obsolete homophone cognate with Proto-Vietic *c-mɔːlʔ (“digging stick”), which alongside "male" may derive from a stem represented in Old Khmer cval (“to enter; to penetrate; (of animals) to copulate”), Khmu [script needed] (cmɔɔl, “to plant (rice) with a digging stick”), [script needed] (crmɔɔl, “digging stick”) (ibid.; Ferlus, 1987). Schuessler (2007) further proposes a relationship with 畝 (OC *mɯʔ, “cropland; mu (a Chinese measuring unit for area)”) (ibid.); see there for more.

牡

1. (obsolete) male of animals

   Synonyms: 雄 (xióng), 公 (gōng)

   Antonym: 牝 (pìn)

   • 駉駉牡馬，在坰之野。 [Pre-Classical Chinese, trad.]
     𬳶𬳶牡马，在坰之野。 [Pre-Classical Chinese, simp.]

     From: The Classic of Poetry, c. 11^th – 7^th centuries BCE, translated based on James Legge's version

     Jiōngjiōng mǔ mǎ, zài jiōng zhī yě. [Pinyin]

     Fat and large are the stallions [/ male horses],
     On the plains of the far-distant borders.

   • 在獸則牡為陽而牝為陰；……。 [Classical Chinese, trad.]
     在兽则牡为阳而牝为阴；……。 [Classical Chinese, simp.]

     From: Shuoyuan, circa 1^st century BCE

     Zài shòu zé mǔ wéi yáng ér pìn wéi yīn;....... [Pinyin]

     Among quadrupeds, male are yang and female are yin; [...].

2. (obsolete) male genitals
3. (obsolete) bolt of door
4. (obsolete) hill; hump
5. Used in 牡蠣／牡蛎 (mǔlì, “oyster”).

• “牡”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎, 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–

(“Jinmeiyō” kanji used for names)

1. male
2. oyster

• Go-on: む (mu); も (mo)
• Kan-on: ぼう (bō)
• Kan’yō-on: ぼ (bo)
• Kun: おす (osu, 牡); お (o, 牡); おん (on, 牡)

牡 • (mo) (hangeul 모, revised mo, McCune–Reischauer mo, Yale mo)

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

牡: Hán Nôm readings: mẫu

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