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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

參

/ʂən⁵⁵/
(Chinese astronomy) Three Stars mansion (one of the Twenty-Eight Mansions)
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 2
  • radical 厶
  • 11 strokes
  • 慘
  • 䟃
  • 惨
  • 𫎺

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  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

Etymology 1

Simplified from 曑 (晶 → 厽).

The bronze script form is an ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 晶 (“stars”) + 光 (“light; brightness”) + 彡 (“light rays”) – Three Stars mansion. 彡 (OC *sroːm, *slom) also acts as a phonetic component. Ignoring the lines connecting the three stars, 光 may be interpreted as 卩 (“kneeling person”), representing someone looking at the shining stars above him.

Alternatively, it may be the original character of 簪 (OC *ʔsɯːm, *ʔsrɯm, “hairpin”), since the bronze script forms resemble a person wearing a hat with three stars.

Based on the seal script form, Shuowen interprets the character as a phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *sʰluːm, *sʰluːms, *sloːm, *sʰrum, *srum): semantic 晶 (“stars”) + phonetic 㐱. However, according to the original form, this character is unrelated to 㐱.

From 三 (OC *suːm, *suːms, “three”) + other element (Schuessler, 2007).

Etymology 2

Related to Japhug tɤzrɤm (“root”), Yakkha साम (“root”) (Jacques, 2015b), all from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *srəm (“root”).

Etymology 5

Related to 巉 (OC *zraːm, *zraːmʔ, “craggy”) (Schuessler, 2007).

Etymology 7

From English ransom (Cheung, 2007, page 219).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • simplified fromChinese曑
  • ideaChinese晶 “brilliant; glittering”
  • ideaChinese光 “light; beam; ray (Classifier: 束 m; 道 m)”
    • ideaChinese火 “fire; flame (Classifier: 把 m; 團／团 m)”
    • ideaChinese卩 “kneeling person”
  • soundChinese㐱
  • ideaChinese彡 “hair”
  • derivedEnglishransom “Money paid for the freeing of a hostage.”
    • inheritedMiddle Englishraunsoun
      • borrowedOld Frenchraençon

Related: Japhug tɤzrɤm, Yakkha साम

Words built on it: 參加

Meanings

character
  1. (Chinese astronomy) Three Stars mansion (one of the Twenty-Eight Mansions)
  2. a surname

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 同「三」。

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

How 參 was written 字形演變

  1. 參 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 參 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 參 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 參 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 參 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: 參