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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

古

gǔ
the past; ancient times
  • Ideogram
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 口
  • 5 strokes

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  • derived
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  • meaning component
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Origin

Ideogram (指事): A shield (甲, contraction of 盾 and similar but unrelated to 中) and the radical of the mouth (口) both as a distinguishing mark and as a component that partly indicates pronunciation. Together, they indicate the concept of "strong, firm" (as strong as a shield); original form of 固 (OC *kaːs) (Qiu Xigui, Ding Shan 丁山). Compare oracle bone forms with 干, 盾. Unrelated to 中 and hence to 史 and 使.

Fang (1982) finds evidence for the 十 component originally being a depiction of a piece of food and the character originally being a depiction of someone spitting out a piece of food due to his bad taste. Thus, Fang argues this character is the original form of 苦 (kǔ), "bitter".

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *r-ga (“old”). Cognate with 故 (OC *kaːs, “old things; former; dead”) and Tibetan རྒ (rga, “to be old; aged”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*r-ga “old”

Related: Tibetan རྒ

Words built on it: 古代, 苦, 古老, 居

Meanings

character
  1. the past; ancient times
  2. old; ancient
  3. classic; old-styled
  4. simple; unaffected; unsophisticated,
  5. things in the past; antiquities; history
  6. story (Classifier: 段 c)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

古：故也。从十、口。識前言者也。凡古之屬皆从古。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 過去且久遠的時代、事物。與「今」相對。 例：古今中外、貴古賤今、信而好古
  2. 過去的、舊的。 例：古人、古事、古物
  3. 質樸。 例：古樸、人心不古
  4. 古體詩。 例：五古、七古
  5. 姓。

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

How 古 was written 字形演變

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