巫

Translingual

Han character

巫 (Kangxi radical 48, 工+4, 7 strokes, cangjie input 一人人 (MOO), four-corner 1010₈, composition ⿻工从)

References

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 325, character 19
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 8728
• Dae Jaweon: page 629, character 7
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 1, page 412, character 8
• Unihan data for U+5DEB

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Chinese

simp. and trad.		巫

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character 巫
Shang	Western Zhou	Warring States		Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)		Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Oracle bone script	Bronze inscriptions	Chu slip and silk script	Qin slip script	Ancient script	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

Characters in the same phonetic series (巫) (Zhengzhang, 2003) 

	Old Chinese
巫	*ma
誣	*ma
莁	*ma
鵐	*ma

Pictogram (象形) – originally two pieces of jade crossed over each other as used in ancient shamanistic practices.

Etymology

“shaman; witch”

This word initially referred to spirit medium/shaman of either sex, but eventually female when contrasted with 覡 (OC *ɡeːɡ, “male shaman”). Various hypotheses exist regarding its etymology (Schuessler, 2007):

1. Cognate with Tibetan འབའ་པོ ('ba' po, “magician, sorcerer”), འབའ་མོ ('ba' mo, “sorceress”).
2. Cognate with 誣 (OC *ma, “to deceive”).
3. Cognate with 舞 (OC *maʔ, “to dance”).
4. Cognate with 母 (OC *mɯʔ, “female”).
5. Victor Mair (1990) and Jao Tsung-I (1990) proposed that this is a loanword from Old Persian 𐎶𐎦𐎢𐏁 (maguš) (more at Wikipedia: Magus). (Mair, 1990; Mair, 2012).

Thai หมอ (mɔ̌ɔ, “doctor”) < Proto-Tai *ʰmo:ᴬ (“shaman”) is generally assumed to be a Sino-Tibetan loan (Pittayaporn, 2014). More at Wu (shaman), Magi#In Chinese sources, magus.

“Malay”

Clipping of 巫來由／巫来由 (wūláiyóu), a transcription of Malay Melayu.

Definitions

(deprecated template usage) 巫

1. shaman; witch; sorcerer; wizard
2. witch doctor
3. (chiefly Malaysia, Singapore) Malay; Melayu; relating to ethnic Malays
4. a surname

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Japanese

Kanji

巫

(“Jinmeiyō” kanji used for names)

1. shaman
2. witch, sorcerer

Readings

• Go-on: む (mu)
• Kan-on: ぶ (bu)
• Kan’yō-on: ふ (fu)
• Kun: みこ (miko, 巫); かんなぎ (kannagi, 巫)

Compounds

Compounds

• 巫医(ふい) (fui): a shrine maiden and a doctor; someone who is both a shrine maiden and a doctor
• 巫山(ふざん) (Fuzan): Wushan, the Wu Mountains, a mountainous area in China along the Wu Gorge
• 巫術(ふじゅつ) (fujutsu): shamanism; witchcraft, sorcery
• 巫女(みこ) (miko): a shrine maiden

Usage notes

This is the only kanji added to the jinmeiyō kanji list on 7 January 2015 by the Japanese government; previously classified as hyōgaiji.

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Korean

Hanja

巫 • (mu) (hangeul 무, revised mu, McCune–Reischauer mu)

1. A shaman.
2. Something related to shamanism.

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Vietnamese

Han character

(deprecated template usage) 巫 (vu)

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