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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

反

fǎn
to turn over or flip; to turn around; to reverse; to change to an opposite position
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 又
  • 4 strokes

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Origin

STEDT compares it to Proto-Sino-Tibetan *par (“to trade; to buy; to sell”), from which Tibetan ཕར (phar, “interest (on money); exchange”) is derived.

Cognate with 販 (OC *pans, “to trade”), which is an exoactive of 反 (OC *panʔ, *pʰan, “to return, lit. to make someone return”) (Schuessler, 2007).

番 (OC *pʰan, “a turn; a time”) is the iterative of 反 (OC *panʔ, *pʰan).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

Related: Tibetan ཕར

Words built on it: 飯, 反而, 反映, 相反, 反正, 版, 板, 反抗

Meanings

character
  1. to turn over or flip; to turn around; to reverse; to change to an opposite position
  2. to return; to counter
  3. to rebel; to revolt
  4. to oppose
  5. instead; on the contrary
  6. reversed; opposite; backwards; upside down

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

反：覆也。从又，厂反形。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 翻轉、顛倒。 例：反敗為勝、易如反掌
  2. 背向自己方向的，或具消極、否定、異常意義的。與「正」相對。 例：反面、反義、反常　◎
  3. 不贊成，持抗議立場的。 例：反核、反汙染
  4. 回、還。 例：反省、反求諸己
  5. 出於正常判斷之外的。 例：反而、畫虎不成反類犬
  6. 翻案。 例：平反

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

How 反 was written 字形演變

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