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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

司

/sɹ̩⁵⁵/
to take charge of; to control; to manage
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 2
  • radical 口
  • 5 strokes

Etymology graph

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

Inconclusive.

* Jì Xùshēng: Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意) a mouth 口 giving orders and a scepter 刁 of authority.

* Liú Xìnglóng interprets 刁 to be a hand instead.

* Táng Lán: Originally the same character as 后, which later diverged.

* Shuowen: 后 flipped.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *zə; cognate with Proto-Kukish *ca, Mru caŋ (“to do; to make”), and Tibetan མཛད (mdzad, “to do; to act”), མཛོད (mdzod), possibly also related to བཟོ (bzo, “work, labour”) (Schuessler, 2007). Schuessler disputes Löffler's (1966) proposed connection of these cognates to 作 (OC *ʔsaːɡs, *ʔsaːɡs, *ʔsaːɡ, “to do, work, make”) due to phonological difficulties.

Unger (1984) posits a possible relationship with Tibetan རྫི་པོ (rdzi po, “herdsman”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*zə

Related: Mru caŋ, Tibetan མཛད, Tibetan རྫི་པོ

Words built on it: 公司, 詞

Meanings

character
  1. to take charge of; to control; to manage
  2. officer; official
  3. department (type of subordinate government agency)
  4. Used in transcription.
  5. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

司：臣司事於外者。从反后。凡司之屬皆从司。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 掌管。 例：司儀、司法、各司其事
  2. 中央機關各部以下的組織單位。 例：外交部禮賓司、教育部社會教育司
  3. 姓。

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

How 司 was written 字形演變

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