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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

剪

jiǎn
to cut (paper, etc.)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 5
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 刀
  • 11 strokes

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Origin

Originally 𣦃 and then stylized into 前, a phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ʔslenʔ): phonetic 歬 (OC *zleːn) + semantic 刀 (“knife”). Since 前 has replaced 歬, an additional 刀 has been added.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese歬
  • 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)”

Meanings

character
  1. to cut (paper, etc.)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

剪：齊斷也。从刀歬聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 兩面刀刃相對、交叉以截斷東西的用具。 例：剪刀、剪子
  2. 用剪刀裁截。 例：剪紙、剪髮、修剪　◎

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

How 剪 was written 字形演變

  1. 剪 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 剪 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 剪