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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

劇

jù
theatrical work; play; opera; drama (Classifier: 部 m; 套 c)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • radical 刀
  • 15 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ɡaɡ): phonetic 豦 (OC *kas, *ɡa) + semantic 刀 (“knife”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese豦 “the appearance of beasts fighting”
    • ideaChinese虍 “pattern of tiger fur”
    • ideaChinese豕 “pig; boar”
  • 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. theatrical work; play; opera; drama (Classifier: 部 m; 套 c)
  2. many; diverse; numerous
  3. great; powerful
  4. severe; acute; intense
  5. hard; difficult
  6. fortress; stronghold

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

劇：尤甚也。从刀，未詳。豦聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 由人扮演腳色，表現人生或生活周遭現象的表演活動。 例：喜劇、歌劇、話劇
  2. 非常的猛烈。 例：劇烈、劇寒

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

How 劇 was written 字形演變

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