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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

吃

chī
to eat; to consume
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 1
  • radical 口
  • 6 strokes

Etymology graph

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

「吃」屬於形聲字，由表示口部的「口」作為意符，以及「乞」作為聲符組成。在原始漢語中，其構造成份的重構形式為 *kɯd。雖然「乞」在字義上有「乞求」的借用意義，且可能因其表示說話困難的含義而對「吃」的部分意義有所貢獻，但這僅是可能的推測。此外，有民間說法認為「乞」字代表說話時氣流不足，但這是不正確的；「乞」實際上是「气」的變體，原意為「空氣」，後來才被借用為「乞求」之意。此外，「吃」的本義可能最初是寫作「喫」。

在字形演變上，此字最早見於篆書與楷書。其構成要素中，「口」代表嘴巴（特別是嘴唇與口腔內部）；聲符「乞」則提供讀音。根據《說文解字》的記載，此字的意思是說話困難（言蹇難）。

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
  • soundChinese乞 “to beg”

Words built on it: 好吃, 小吃

Wiktionary etymology text

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *kɯd): semantic 口 (“mouth”) + phonetic 乞 (OC *kʰɯds, *kʰɯd) – "to stutter".

The phonetic component could add part of the meaning since it has the phonetically borrowed meaning of "begging" (i.e., trying to talk but with difficulties).

According to folk etymologies, 乞 in this character indicates that, while stuttering, less air comes from the mouth (compare 气, which has more trails). However, this is incorrect. 乞 is simply a variant of 气, originally meaning "air" and later borrowed to indicate "begging". The sense of eat may originally have been written 喫.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Meanings

character
  1. to eat; to consume
  2. to absorb (a liquid)
  3. to swallow up; to absorb; to annex
  4. to live on
  5. to suffer; to endure; to bear
  6. to exhaust; to be a strain

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

吃：言蹇難也。从口气聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 口中咀嚼食物後嚥下。有時吸、飲液體也稱為「吃」。 例：吃飯、吃茶、吃藥　◎
  2. 捱受、接納。 例：吃驚、吃虧、吃官司
  3. 耗費。 例：吃力
  4. 吸入、吸收。 例：吃墨、吃煙
  5. 下棋、玩牌時奪取對方的棋子或牌張。 例：抽車吃炮、吃掉老Ｋ
  6. 沉入。用來說明船舶下沉於水面下程度的用語。 例：這船吃水多深？

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

How 吃 was written 字形演變

  1. 吃 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 吃 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

  • etymagent (local gemma4:26b) — Generated
  • 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: 吃