婿

Stroke order

Stroke order

婿 (Kangxi radical 38, 女+9, 12 strokes, cangjie input 女弓人月 (VNOB), four-corner 4742₇, composition ⿰女胥)

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 266, character 9
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 6470
• Dae Jaweon: page 533, character 16
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 2, page 1069, character 14
• Unihan data for U+5A7F

Phono-semantic compound (形聲／形声, OC *sŋeːs) : semantic 女 + phonetic 胥 (OC *sŋa, *sŋaʔ).

Attested in Qin materials as ⿰士咠, which is of semantic 士 + phonetic 咠 (OC *ʔsib, *sʰib); the phonetic part is later conflated into 胥 (Li, 2022).

Reminiscent of Proto-South-Bahnaric *saːj (“to marry; spouse”) (Schuessler, 2007).

The Standard Mandarin pronunciation xù is due to rounding assimilation in the word 女婿 (nǚxu), which generalized to the character reading (Zhou, 1997).

婿

1. son-in-law
2. husband

(Jōyō kanji)

• Go-on: さい (sai)
• Kan-on: せい (sei, Jōyō)
• Kun: むこ (muko, 婿, Jōyō)

*/moko/ → *⟨muko₁⟩ → */mukʷo/*⟨mo₍₁₎ko₁⟩ → */mʷokʷo/^[1] → /muko/

Found in the Nihon Shoki of 720 CE with the ideographic spelling 聟.^[2]

Although the reading muko is not confirmed in Old Japanese documents, the presence of cognate words suggests that this may be from Proto-Japonic *moko (cognate with Okinawan 婿 (mūku), Kunigami 婿 (mufu), Miyako 婿 (muku) and the moko below). This would be the a result of a phonological change, whereby non-final */o/ in Proto-Japonic nouns shifted to become /u/ in Central Old Japanese.

In regard to the derivation, there are some theories proposed, however many of them are associated with the verbs 向かう (mukau, “to go towards”) and 迎える (mukaeru, “to receive”), both derived from 向く (muku, “to turn toward”), from Proto-Japonic *muk-, from the idea of "the facing party, the other person (of a pair)"; see also 向こう (mukō, “the other side, the facing side”). Theories to explain this inconsistency in the proto-forms have not been published yet.

• (Tokyo) むこ (Atamadaka – )^[3]
• IPA^(key):

婿(むこ) • (muko) 

1. a husband who has entered his wife's house:
   1. a son-in-law

      Synonyms: 女婿 (josei), 娘婿 (musumemuko)

   2. a groom, bridegroom (man who is about to get married)

      Synonyms: 新郎 (shinrō), 花婿 (hanamuko)

• (antonym(s) of “all senses”): 嫁(よめ) (yome)

• Entry at Gogen-Allguide (in Japanese)

*/moko/ → ⟨mo₍₁₎ko₁⟩ → */mʷokʷo/ → /moko/

From other Old Japanese dialects besides Central Old Japanese, with a conserved */o/ as ⟨o₁⟩.

Possibly cognate or otherwise related with Old Japanese もこ (mo₁ko₁, “companion, fellow”).

婿(もこ) • (moko) 

1. (dialectal, Tōhoku, Northern Kantō, Niigata, Nagano, Chūgoku, etc.) Nonstandard form of むこ (muko) above
   • 898–901, Shinsen Jikyō:

     聟 毛古、又加太支

     Groom: moko, also kataki (“enemy”)

From Middle Chinese 婿 (MC sejH).

婿(せい) • (sei) 

1. groom
2. son-in-law

• 女(じょ)婿(せい) (josei)
• 令(れい)婿(せい) (reisei)

婿 • (seo) (hangeul 서, revised seo, McCune–Reischauer sŏ)

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

婿: Hán Nôm readings: tế

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