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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

互

/xu⁵¹/
mutually; reciprocally
  • Ideogram
  • HSK 3
  • radical 二
  • 4 strokes

Etymology graph

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

Ideogram (指事): 牙 and a distinguishing mark. Early texts often used 互 and 牙 interchangeably.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese一 “one”
  • partChinese彑 “head”

Words built on it: 互相, 相互

Meanings

character
  1. mutually; reciprocally
  2. mutual
  3. crisscrossing; intertwining
  4. wooden rack for hanging meat
  5. error; mistake
  6. gate

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 彼此。 例：互敬互愛、互助合作、互通有無

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

How 互 was written 字形演變

  1. 互 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 互 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 互