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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

刷

shuā
brush (tool)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 刀
  • 8 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
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  • meaning component
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *sroːd, *srod): semantic 刀 (“knife”) + phonetic 㕞.

Perhaps from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *srəwt (“to wipe, sweep, rub, scrub”) (STEDT, under PTB *s(u/i)t). Cognate with Tibetan བཤུད (bshud, “to wipe”), Burmese သုတ် (sut, “idem”) (though STEDT mistakenly puts down 恤 (OC *sqʰʷiɡ, “to sympathize, compensate”) for the Chinese character instead).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*srəwt “to wipe, sweep, rub, scrub”
  • meaningChinese刀 “knife; blade (Classifier: 把 m c g h j mb md w x; 張／张 c h; 叢／丛 mn; 支 mn mn-t)”
  • soundChinese㕞

Related: Tibetan བཤུད, Burmese သုတ်

Words built on it: 印刷

Meanings

character
  1. brush (tool)
  2. to brush; to scrub; to clean with a brush
  3. to paint with a brush
  4. to eliminate
  5. to swipe (a card, etc.); to scan
  6. to browse through (updates on social media etc.); to flip through

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

刷：刮也。从刀，㕞省聲。《禮》：“布刷巾。”

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 用來清除異物或塗抹的器具。 例：牙刷、鞋刷、油漆刷　△刷子
  2. 用刷子清除、去除。 例：刷洗、刷牙、刷毛　◎
  3. 用刷子塗抹。 例：他的房間刷上一層油漆之後煥然一新。
  4. 狀聲詞。形容迅速擦過的聲音。 例：刷刷作響

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

How 刷 was written 字形演變

  1. 刷 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 刷 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: 刷