Chinese

做

zuò
to do; to perform
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 1
  • radical 人
  • 11 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

The character 做 is a colloquial form of the departing-tone variant of 作. In Mandarin, the loss of checked codas has resulted in homophony between this form and the checked-tone variant of 作. It was originally a vulgar variant of 作, written as ⿰作攵, where the component 乍 later corrupted into 古.

Graphically, the character consists of the component 故 and the person radical 亻. The component 故 is composed of the semantic element 攴, meaning to hit lightly or tap, and the phonetic element 古, meaning the past or ancient times. The component 故 itself carries the meaning of old or of the past.

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

Lineage

  • partChinese亻 “Side form of the person (人 (rén)) radical.”
  • partChinese故 “old; of the past”
    • soundChinese古 “the past; ancient times”
    • meaningChinese攴 “to hit lightly; to tap”

Words built on it: 做法

Wiktionary etymology text

Originally a vulgar variant of 作, written ⿰作攵. The component 乍 later corrupted into 古.

Colloquial form of the departing-tone variant of 作 (MC tsaH, “to do”), to differentiate from the checked-tone variant (now represented by 作). Loss of checked codas in Mandarin has resulted in homophony of the two.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sources