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

勸

/t͡ɕʰy̯ɛn⁵¹/

to encourage; to recommend

Phono-semantic compound 形聲
HSK 5
TOCFL 6
radical 力
20 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *kʰons): phonetic 雚 (OC *koːns) + semantic 力 (“strength”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

soundChinese雚 “original form of 鸛／鹳 (guàn, “stork; heron”)”
meaningChinese力 “physical strength; physical power; energy”

Meanings

character

to encourage; to recommend
to advise; to urge; to exhort
to appeal
a surname, Quan

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

勸：勉也。从力雚聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

用言語開導他人。例：勸告、規勸、勸戒
鼓勵、勉勵。例：勸勉、勸善

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

How 勸 was written 字形演變

Small seal
說文小篆
Shuowen, c. 100 CE
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: 勸