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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

三

sān
three
  • Ideogram
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 1
  • radical 一
  • 3 strokes
  • 參
  • 参

Etymology graph

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Origin

Ideogram (指事) - three parallel strokes. Compare with 一, one stroke meaning “one”, 二, two strokes meaning “two”, and 亖, four strokes meaning “four”.

Triplication of 一 (“one”). See also 畺. Unrelated to 丰.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *kV-sum.

Pronunciation in Early Middle Chinese should be *srim, but actually is *sam, with a non-retroflex initial consonant. This irregular development should be due by analogy with the initial of number four in EMC, *sijH.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

Words built on it: 非, 龍, 羊

Meanings

character
  1. three
  2. the other woman; the other man
  3. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

三：天、地、人之道也。从三數。凡三之屬皆从三。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 介於二與四之間的自然數。大寫作「參」，阿拉伯數字作「3」。 例：二、三、四、五……
  2. 第三的。 例：三月、三哥
  3. 表多數或多次的。 例：舉一反三、三番兩次、一問三不知

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 三 was written 字形演變

  1. 三 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 三 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 三 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 三 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 三 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 三 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 三