The character has a restricted semantic field in modern usage.
訃 differs from 

to announce, to inform, to tell, to report, to accuse, to sue (in legal contexts)

 in that it carries a solemn, funeral-specific nuance.

Related characters:


to repay, to recompense, to report, to announce, to inform

to mourn, to condole, to express sympathy, to visit or reach, to pity

mourning, funeral ceremony, to lose, to die

A phono-semantic compound consisting of:


word, speech

 — semantic component, clearly indicates verbal or written communication;


fortune-telling, divination

 — phonetic component, supplying the sound (부 / fù).
The original sense is “to announce (news),” which later specialized to the meaning “to announce a death.”

Semantic development:
- to announce news;
- to notify formally;
- specifically: to announce a death.
Over time, the meaning narrowed primarily to obituary notices.

In Korean, 訃 appears almost exclusively in funeral-related vocabulary.

부고 (訃告) — obituary notice
부음 (訃音) — news of someone’s death

Characters

Words

Vocabulary

to see, to look at, to observe

to be close, intimate, relatives, parents, direct, personal

to realize, to perceive, to awaken, to reveal

to look at, to view, to observe

to see, to observe, to view

to untie, to loosen, to solve, to explain, to understand

to touch, to come into contact with

to correct, to rectify, to set right, to order, subscribe

obituary notice, announcement of death, to notify

count, calculation

to ask, to inquire, to question

to attack, to punish, to subjugate

to teach, to instruct

to entrust, to request, to rely on

to record, to note down, to remember, record, account, chronicle

to be false, to be incorrect, mistaken

to litigate, to bring a lawsuit, to dispute, to argue

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Chinese character

Explore 214 Chinese radicals and their derived characters. Sort by radical or stroke count, and view the complete list of official Hanja radicals.

訃

Etymology

Usage in Korean

Additional notes

Words that derived from 訃

Neighboring characters in the dictionary