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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

刀

dāo
knife; blade (Classifier: 把 m c g h j mb md w x; 張／张 c h; 叢／丛 mn; 支 mn mn-t)
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 7
  • radical 刀
  • 2 strokes

Etymology graph

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

Etymology 1

Pictogram (象形) – a knife. The original form was 𠚣, which can be found in a variant of 利, 𥝢 (in turn used on the top of the character 黎).

Unclear. Here are several proposals:

* Schuessler (2007) considers this to be an area word or a word widely borrowed from Chinese into other languages; compare Proto-Karen *ʔdɔ (“knife”), Jingpho [script needed] (n³¹-do³¹, “short knife”), Proto-Vietic *-taːw (“knife”), Bulo Stieng taaw;

* Stephen Baron posits Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-ta-w, with a sparsely attested suffix *-w retained in Sinitic yet lost in Tibeto-Burman, yielding Proto-Tibeto-Burman *s-ta (“knife; axe; sword”); compare Tibetan སྟ་རེ (sta re, “axe; hatchet”), Burmese ဓား (dha:, “knife; sword”), Proto-Loloish *ta² (“knife”) (STEDT);

* Starostin derives it from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tā̆w ~ *dā̆w, comparing it to Tibetan སྟེའུ (ste'u, “carpenter's axe, adze”) and Jingpho nhtu (“sword”).

Etymology 2

From English dollar.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese㇆
  • partChinese丿 “left-falling stroke, usually read as 撇”
  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*s-ta-w
    • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*tā̆w ~ *dā̆w
  • derivedEnglishdollar “Official designation for currency in some parts of the world, including Canada, the United States, …”
    • borrowedDutchdaalder
      • borrowedMiddle Low Germandāler

Related: Proto-Karen *ʔdɔ, Proto-Vietic *-taːw, Bulo Stieng taaw, Proto-Tibeto-Burman *s-ta, Tibetan སྟ་རེ, Burmese ဓား, Proto-Loloish *ta², Tibetan སྟེའུ, Jingpho nhtu

Words built on it: 到, 分, 別, 魚, 班, 則, 初, 絕, 刷, 齊, 副

Meanings

character
  1. knife; blade (Classifier: 把 m c g h j mb md w x; 張／张 c h; 叢／丛 mn; 支 mn mn-t)
  2. single-edged sword; cutlass
  3. Classifier for sets of one hundred sheets of paper.
  4. Classifier for incisions with a knife, blade, single-edged sword, etc.
  5. to bargain; to negotiate on price
  6. a surname (only common among Tai people)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

刀：兵也。象形。凡刀之屬皆从刀。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 可用來砍殺的兵器。 例：大刀、軍刀、武士刀
  2. 切、削、剪、刻、割、斬的工具。多以鋼鐵製成。 例：菜刀、剪刀、鐮刀 　◎
  3. 古代的錢幣。外形如刀。 例：刀布
  4. 量詞。計算紙張的單位。一百張紙為一刀。 例：一刀稿紙

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

How 刀 was written 字形演變

  1. 刀 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 刀 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 刀 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 刀 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 刀 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 刀 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
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 刀