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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

京

jīng
capital (city)
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 1
  • radical 亠
  • 8 strokes

Etymology graph

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

Etymology 1

Pictogram (象形) – a tall building. Compare 高.

When used as a component on top of the character, the character loses the bottom part 小. (e.g., 亮 and 亭).

Either from:

* Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-gaŋ (“hill, ridge, mountain”) (STEDT), cognate with 岡 (OC *klaːŋ, “hill, crest”), 鯨 (OC *ɡraŋ, “whale”), Tibetan སྒང་ (sgang, “ridge; mound”), Burmese ခင် (hkang, “ridge”), Burmese အခေါင် (a.hkaung, “summit”), Lahu qhɔ³³ (“mountain”), Puroik gɹaŋ³³ (“mountain”), Proto-Tamangic *ᴬgaŋ ("hill, mountain"); or

* of Austroasiatic origin, compare Proto-Mon-Khmer *graŋ (“hill, peak”) (Schuessler, 2007), whence Mon ဂြၚ် (krɛ̀aŋ, “peak”) and Old Khmer grāṅ (“hill on flat land”).

Within Chinese, cognate with 景 (OC *kraŋʔ, “large”), 鯨 (OC *ɡraŋ, “whale”) (Schuessler, 2007).

Etymology 2

From Vietnamese Kinh, in turn from Sino-Vietnamese word from 京 (“capital”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*s-gaŋ “hill, ridge, mountain”
  • borrowedVietnameseKinh

Related: Tibetan སྒང༌, Burmese ခင်, Burmese အခေါင်, Lahu qhɔ³³, Puroik gɹaŋ³³, Proto-Mon-Khmer *graŋ, Mon ဂြၚ်, Old Khmer grāṅ

Words built on it: 就, 北京, 涼, 亮

Meanings

character
  1. capital (city)
  2. ten quadrillion, 10¹⁶
  3. tall mound
  4. large barn
  5. large; great
  6. ten million, 10⁷

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

京：人所爲絕高丘也。从高省，丨象高形。凡京之屬皆从京。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 國都、首都。 例：京城、帝京

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

How 京 was written 字形演變

  1. 京 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 京 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 京 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 京 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

  • 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: 京