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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

加

jiā
to put on top of another object
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 力
  • 5 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

Shuowen: ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 力 (“strength”) + 口 (“mouth”) — exaggerate; slander.

Sun Changxu: ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 力 (“plowing”) + 口 (“mouth”) — to put more effort. 口 here indicates exclamations or breath associated with the effort.

駕 (OC *kraːls, “to yoke”) is the exopassive of 加 (OC *kraːl, “to add; to attach”) (Schuessler, 2007). Cognate with Tibetan ཁྲལ (khral, “to impose a tax”), Burmese ကြား (kra:, “between”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese力 “physical strength; physical power; energy”
  • ideaChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”

Related: Tibetan ཁྲལ, Burmese ကြား

Words built on it: 增加, 加油, 更加, 加入, 架, 加工, 加上, 加快, 參加, 加速, 加班, 加以

Meanings

character
  1. to put on top of another object
  2. to add; to put in
  3. to increase; to raise
  4. to impose; to foist; to grant
  5. placed after a monosyllabic adverb to indicate an increase in the degree; more
  6. to add

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

加：語相增加也。从力从口。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 增益、增添。與「減」相對。 例：增加、加股、加倍
  2. 數學上指兩個數目的結合。 例：三加五等於八。
  3. 將一物與另一物相結合。 例：這杯咖啡太過苦澀，請再幫我加些牛奶。
  4. 施、置。 例：加害
  5. 戴上。 例：加冕、加冠

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

How 加 was written 字形演變

  1. 加 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 加 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 加 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 加 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: 加