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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

取

qǔ
to take; to fetch
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 又
  • 8 strokes
  • 贖
  • 赎

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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 耳 (“ear”) + 又 (“hand”) - to take the ear of fallen prey, a rite of hunters mentioned in the Rites of Zhou.

Shuowen interprets it as taking the ear of an enemy instead. However, Wang (2022) points out that there is no evidence that this actually happened in war.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese耳 “ear”
  • ideaChinese又 “again; once more”

Words built on it: 最, 取得, 取消, 聚

Meanings

character
  1. to take; to fetch
  2. to receive (money, goods, documents, etc.)
  3. to get; to obtain
  4. to select; to choose
  5. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

取：捕取也。从又从耳。《周禮》：“獲者取左耳。”《司馬法》曰：“載獻聝。”聝者，耳也。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 拿。 例：取款、各取所需、探囊取物
  2. 獲得、得到。 例：取樂、取暖、取信於人
  3. 選擇、採用。 例：取士、取景、取名
  4. 招致。 例：自取滅亡

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

How 取 was written 字形演變

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