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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

下問

/ɕi̯ä⁵¹⁻⁵³ wən⁵¹/
to ask someone who is less learned or of lesser status than oneself
  • 下问
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Origin

The phrase 下問 is formed by combining the character 下, meaning the lower part, under, or beneath, with the character 問, meaning to ask.

The character 問 consists of a semantic component 口, representing the mouth, and a phonetic component 門, meaning gate, door, entrance, or portal.

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

「下問」是由兩個漢字組成的詞組。其中「下」字代表下方、底下或在……之下；「問」字則代表提問。

在字形結構上，「問」字結合了意義與聲音的組成部分。其意義部分由「口」（指嘴巴，特別是嘴唇與口腔內部）構成；其聲音部分則由「門」（指門、門戶或入口）構成。

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

Lineage

  • characterChinese下 “lower part of; under; beneath”
  • characterChinese問 “to ask”
    • soundChinese門 “gate; door; entrance; opening; portal (Classifier: 扇 m mn; 道 m c; 度 c; 條／条 c; 隻／只 c; 片 mn)”
    • meaningChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
Wiktionary etymology text

No etymology text yet. The graph shows what is known from the sources.

Meanings

phrase
  1. to ask someone who is less learned or of lesser status than oneself

The Act of Asking from a Higher Position

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Sources

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