荼

荼 (Kangxi radical 140, 艸+7, 10 strokes, cangjie input 廿人一木 (TOMD), four-corner 4490₄, composition ⿱艹余)

• 𨝛, 𠻬, 𢴉, 瑹, 𣘻, 𦹍, 䅷, 𭱻, 𮌵, 𨢬, 𮜌, 鷋, 𩻓

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 1032, character 21
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 31008
• Dae Jaweon: page 1492, character 8
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 5, page 3221, character 11
• Unihan data for U+837C

Historical forms of the character 荼
Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)	Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

Phono-semantic compound (形聲／形声, OC *rlaː, *ɦlja, *l'aː) : semantic 艸 (“grass”) + phonetic 余 (OC *la)

荼

1. a type of bitter vegetable, possibly sow thistle or other plants of Asteraceae
2. (figurative) pain; suffering
3. spikes of cogon (or other grasses) with long whitish hair

   如火如荼  ―  rúhuǒrútú  ―  (red) like fire, (white) like cogon spikes

4. pappus
   • 1803, 程瑤田, 釋草小記:

     芺、薊者……荼卽其華之實所戴者。

     Thistle... The pappus is what its flower's fruit wears.

5. white

   荼首  ―  túshǒu  ―  hoary head

• 荼 can refer to one of several types of bitter tasting vegetables. Early Chinese texts are rather vague in their description, which makes it difficult to determine which species it originally referred to.

荼

1. a surname

荼

1. Only used in 神荼 (Shēnshū).

• “荼”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎^[1], 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–

(Hyōgai kanji)

1. Ixeridium dentatum
2. kanji used to transliterate Buddhist terms borrowed from Sanskrit

• Go-on: じゃ (ja)^{←ぢや (dya, historical)}、ど (do)
• Kan-on: た (ta)、と (to)
• Kan’yō-on: だ (da)
• Kun: にがな (nigana, 荼)

荼: Hán Nôm readings: đồ, dưa, giưa

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