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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

北

běi
north; northern
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 匕
  • 5 strokes
  • 业

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  • borrowed
  • derived
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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意) – two men back to back. Originally meaning “back”; the character 背 (OC *pɯːɡs, *bɯːɡs) refers to the original word.

Compare 化, 比, 卬, and 尼.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *bə(q) (“to carry (on back), shoulder”).

The sense of “north” is derived from “back (of body)”: “back” → “to turn the back to; to retreat” → “north”.

The ancient Chinese value the southern direction and houses are traditionally oriented along a north–south axis, as evident in the fengshui theory and in the orientation of buildings in Chinese Neolithic sites. North is the direction the back is oriented to when the person is facing south.

Compare the graphical origin of 南 (OC *nuːm, “south”) (Sagart, 1988).

Note the irregular Mandarin reflex (běi) from Middle Chinese (unlike the Cantonese reflex, whose form is regular). Expected is bo (no tone specified because Mandarin reflex tone is unpredictable for Middle Chinese checked syllables), which is nevertheless noted as a literary variant below (namely, bò).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

Words built on it: 北京, 北部, 背, 北方, 西北, 乘

Meanings

character
  1. north; northern
  2. to be defeated; to fail

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

北：𦮃也。从二人相背。凡北之屬皆从北。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 北極所在的方向。與「南」相對。 例：北方、北極圈、北回歸線
  2. 失敗、敗逃。 例：敗北、追亡逐北

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

How 北 was written 字形演變

  1. 北 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 北 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 北 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 北 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 北 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 北 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

  • Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
  • 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: 北