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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.

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Chinese

刺

/t͡sʰɹ̩⁵¹/
a pointed structure which is able to pierce something (spike, spine, thorn, prickle, etc.)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 刀
  • 8 strokes
  • 㓨
  • 刾

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *sʰeɡs, *sʰeɡ): phonetic 朿 (OC *sʰeɡs) + semantic 刂 (“knife”).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m-tshyar ~ *g-zyar (“thorn, nail, tack”) (provisional) (STEDT); cognate with Tibetan ཚེར་མ (tsher ma, “thorn, thorn bush”), གཟེར་བ (gzer ba, “to bore into”), and གཟེར (gzer, “nail”) (Schuessler, 2007).

刺 (OC *tsekh) "attack, satirize" (Zuozhuan) < "criticize" (Shijing) < lit. "cause to be stabbed" is exopassive/exoactive derivation of 刺 (OC *tsek) "pierce, stab" (ibid.); 朿 (OC tsʰie^C) "thorn" (SW) is Han period's general tone-C derivation of 刺 (OC *tsʰiek) (ibid.)

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*m-tshyar ~ *g-zyar “thorn, nail, tack”
  • soundChinese朿
  • 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)”

Related: Tibetan ཚེར་མ

Words built on it: 刺激

Meanings

character
  1. a pointed structure which is able to pierce something (spike, spine, thorn, prickle, etc.)
  2. visiting card

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

刺：君殺大夫曰刺。刺，直傷也。从刀从朿，朿亦聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 以尖銳的東西扎入。 例：穿刺、刺繡　◎
  2. 細而尖銳如針的東西。 例：芒刺、魚刺
  3. 以尖酸刻薄的言語指出或嘲笑別人的過失。 例：諷刺、譏刺
  4. 因外物刺激使產生不好的感覺。 例：刺眼、刺耳、刺鼻
  5. 暗殺。 例：行刺、刺殺、遇刺
  6. 暗中打聽。 例：刺探

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

How 刺 was written 字形演變

  1. 刺 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 刺 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 刺 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: 刺