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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

區

qū
area; district; region; ward
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 3
  • radical 匸
  • 11 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

Etymology 1

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 匸 + 品.

Etymology 3

Phonetic substitution for 蛆 (qū, “maggot”), chosen for input method convenience and to mitigate visual harshness.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese匸 “to cover; to conceal”
  • ideaChinese品 “article; item; product; commodity”

Words built on it: 地區

Meanings

character
  1. area; district; region; ward
  2. administrative division
  3. to distinguish; to differentiate
  4. residence; dwelling
  5. small house
  6. world; the human world

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

區：踦區，藏匿也。从品在匸中。品，眾也。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 古代的一種容器，可容一斗六升。 例：豆、區、釜、鍾
  2. 姓。

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

How 區 was written 字形演變

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