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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

員

yuán
member
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • radical 口
  • 10 strokes
  • 貟
  • 贠

Etymology graph

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

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ɢon, *ɢun): phonetic 〇 (OC *ɢon, “circle”) + semantic 鼎 (“ding”).

The 〇 is an ideogram of a circle. This character is an intermediate form of 圓 (OC *ɢon, “circle”) which has been borrowed for the word 員 (OC *ɢon, “many people”).

The 鼎 corrupted into 貝 in the seal script. Shuowen misinterprets it as 口 + 貝. See 則 where a similar change has occurred.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese〇 “circle”
  • meaningChinese鼎 “ding (ancient large, three-legged bronze cauldron for cooking or sacrificial rituals)”

Words built on it: 或, 圓

Meanings

character
  1. member
  2. personnel; staff member
  3. original form of 圓／圆 (yuán, “circle; round”)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

員：物數也。从貝囗聲。凡員之屬皆从員。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 人名用字。如春秋時楚國有伍員。

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

How 員 was written 字形演變

  1. 員 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 員 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 員 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 員 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 員 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 員 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 員