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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

同

tóng
same; identical
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 6
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 口
  • 6 strokes
  • 詷
  • 冈
  • 𫍣

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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Origin

Pictogram (象形): a pipe — original form of 筒 (OC *lˤoŋ).

Perhaps related to Tibetan སྡོང་བ (sdong ba, “to unite; to join”), Mizo intawng (inᴸ-tɔŋᴴ, “to meet together; to tally; to agree”), Mizo intawn (inᴸ-tɔn^F, “to meet together; to tally; to agree”). Unrelated to 叢 (OC *zloːŋ, “to collect; thicket”) (Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • simplified fromChinese衕 “passageway; lane; alley”
    • meaningChinese行 “to walk”
      • componentChinese彳 “to walk slowly”
      • componentChinese亍 “to stop; to stand still”

Related: Tibetan སྡོང་བ, Mizo intawng, Mizo intawn

Words built on it: 不同, 同意, 相同, 共同, 同事, 同情, 同時, 合同, 同學, 一同, 如同

Meanings

character
  1. same; identical
  2. to be the same as
  3. together; with each other
  4. with (indicating accompaniment or relationship)
  5. with
  6. used to show comparison

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

同：合會也。从𠔼从口。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 一樣的。與「異」相對。 例：大同小異、異口同聲、志同道合
  2. 一齊、一起。 例：同舟共濟、同甘共苦、同心協力
  3. 贊成。 例：贊同、同意
  4. 會合、聚集。 例：會同
  5. 和諧、和平。 例：世界大同
  6. 和、與、跟。 例：我同他一起看電影。

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

How 同 was written 字形演變

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