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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

占

/ʈ͡ʂän⁵⁵/
to divine; to foretell
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 卜
  • 5 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
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  • meaning component
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Origin

Etymology 1

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 卜 (“divination”) + 口 (“mouth”).

Etymology 3

Borrowed from English jam.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese卜 “to divine”
  • ideaChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
  • borrowedEnglishjam “A sweet mixture of fruit boiled with sugar and allowed to congeal. Often spread on bread or toast o…”
    • borrowedPersianجامه “garment”
      • borrowedHindiजामा

Words built on it: 點, 站, 店

Meanings

character
  1. to divine; to foretell
  2. to watch or to peep
  3. Variant pronunciation of sense "to recount orally" below
  4. cent
  5. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

占：視兆問也。从卜从口。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 擁有、據有。 例：霸占、攻占、侵占
  2. 口述文辭。 例：口占

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

How 占 was written 字形演變

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