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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

原

yuán
original; former; primary; prime; virgin
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 6
  • TOCFL 7
  • radical 厂
  • 10 strokes

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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 泉 (“spring”) + 厂 (“cliff”) – a spring bursting from a cliff-side – origin. A conservative variant is 厡, in which water is well visible at the bottom.

The sense “source, origin; basic, primary” is perhaps related to 元 (OC *ŋon, “head; principal; first; great”) (Qiu, 1988). According to Schuessler (2007), in Shijing 原 meant "a plain" as well as "highland", thus perhaps also related to 元 (OC *ŋon) (see also Qiu, 2000).

元 and 原 had been used interchangeably in the sense "origin" until 原 became favoured in the early Ming dynasty to avoid the name of the Yuan dynasty. Confer 元由, 元來／元来 and 元配.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese泉 “springwater (Classifier: 口 m; 眼 m)”
    • ideaChinese白 “white”
    • ideaChinese水 “water (Classifier: 瓶 m; 樽 c; 滴 m c; 池 m c; 盆 m c; 杯 m c)”
  • ideaChinese厂 “cliff; habitable cave on a cliff”

Words built on it: 原因, 願, 原料, 原始, 原理, 平原, 草原, 源

Meanings

character
  1. original; former; primary; prime; virgin
  2. primitive; initial; basic; fundamental
  3. unprocessed; raw; crude
  4. source; origin; beginning
  5. to forgive; to pardon; to excuse
  6. open country; plain; field; meadow

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 最初、初始的。 例：原始、原著、物歸原主
  2. 根本。 例：原委
  3. 未經加工的。 例：原木、原油
  4. 本來。 例：我原想參加，卻因事不克前往。
  5. 廣大而平坦的地方。 例：平原、高原
  6. 寬恕、諒解。 例：原宥、原諒、情有可原

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

How 原 was written 字形演變

  1. 原 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 原 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  3. 原 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 原 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 原