午, a pictographic character resembling a pestle for grinding rice, now represented by 杵, serves as a phonetic component.
Another version of the origin of 午: a rope used to manage the horse.
In modern Chinese 午 means:
1.noon
2.the seventh of the twelve Earthly Branches used by the ancients to denote years, months, or days in combination with the ten Heavenly Branches
Characters formed by the phonetic component午
仵 忤 旿 玝 wǔ
许／許 杵 xǔ chǔ
迕 汻 wù hǔ