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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

上

shàng
upper part; high position; up
  • Ideogram
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 一
  • 3 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

As an ideogram, the character is formed by a short horizontal line placed above a long arc, serving as a contrast to 下. The Shuowen Jiezi describes the seal script form as 上. Its earliest attested forms appear in oracle, bronze, chu, qin, seal, and regular scripts.

The character is inherited from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tVŋ, meaning "top." It is a cognate of the Tibetan སྟེང, Tibetan ཡང་རྩེ (summit; pinnacle), and Mizo zo "to be high."

Regarding its pronunciations, Shijing rimes indicate an occasional level tone for pronunciation 2. Pronunciation 1 is the exopassive of pronunciation 2 with the suffix *-s, literally meaning "what has been raised." Pronunciation 3 resulted from an artificial change in pronunciation to preserve rhymes in classical poetry through 叶韻 (xiéyùn).

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

從字形構成來看，「上」屬於指事字，以長弧之上的短橫來表示其意。在語源上，此字繼承自原始漢藏語的 *tVŋ（意為「頂部」）。它與藏語的 སྟེང 以及 ཡང་རྩེ（意為「頂峰；巔峰」）同源，也與 Mizo zo 語言中的 zah（意為「尊敬；崇敬」）或「高」的詞義有關。

在讀音演變方面，《詩經》的韻部顯示其第二讀音偶爾呈現平聲。第一讀音被視為第二讀音加上後綴 *-s 的外被動形式，字面意義為「被舉起的事物」。在中古漢語中，帶有濁塞音聲母的升調詞彙，在演變至現代標準漢語時，通常會轉變為去聲。此外，第三讀音則是為了在古典詩歌中維持押韻，而透過「葉韻」人工改變的讀音。

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*tVŋ “top”

Related: Tibetan སྟེང, Tibetan ཡང་རྩེ, Mizo zo

Words built on it: 晚上, 早上, 上午, 以上, 上班, 身上, 路上, 地上, 上升, 基本上, 上次, 上面

Wiktionary etymology text

Ideogram (指事): short horizontal above long arc (contrast 下 (xià)).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tVŋ (“top”). Cognate with Tibetan སྟེང (steng), Tibetan ཡང་རྩེ (yang rtse, “summit; pinnacle”) (Bodman, 1980), Mizo zo (“to be high”), zah (“to respect; to revere”) (STEDT).

Shijing rimes indicate occasional level tone for pronunciation 2 (Schuessler, 2007).

Pronunciation 1 is the exopassive of pronunciation 2 with suffix *-s, literally meaning "what has been raised" (Schuessler, 2007). The rising tone in Middle Chinese words with voiced stop initials regularly evolves into departing tone in Mandarin. Pronunciation 3 results from 叶韻 (xiéyùn), i.e. its pronunciation has been artificially changed to preserve rhymes in classical poetry.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Meanings

character
  1. upper part; high position; up
  2. emperor
  3. on; above
  4. superior; senior; top; uppermost; the highest level
  5. preceding; previous; last; former
  6. first of several (usually two or three) partitions

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

上：篆文上。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 下的相反，與「下」相對
  2. 去、到。 例：上工、上班、上任
  3. 向前衝。 例：大伙兒上啊！
  4. 進呈。 例：上書、上奏、上菜
  5. 添附、增加
  6. 登載、發表。 例：上報、上電視

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

How 上 was written 字形演變

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

  • etymagent (local gemma4:26b) — Generated
  • 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 上