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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

嘗

/ʈ͡ʂʰɑŋ³⁵/
to taste; to try the flavour
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 5
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 口
  • 14 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *djaŋ): phonetic 尚 (OC *djaŋ, *djaŋs) + semantic 旨 (“tasty”).

Schuessler (2007:181) tries to derive this from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *mjaŋ (“to taste, experience”), but the d- initial remains difficult to explain.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • derivedProto-Sino-Tibetan*mjaŋ “to taste, experience”
  • soundChinese尚 “still; yet”
    • meaningChinese八 “eight”
    • soundChinese向 “to face”
      • ideaChinese宀 “a type of deep house with walls on all four sides, a roof, a main hall, and back rooms”
      • ideaChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
  • meaningChinese旨 “delicious”
    • soundChinese匕 “a kind of spoon in ancient China”
    • meaningChinese甘 “sweet”

Meanings

character
  1. to taste; to try the flavour
  2. to attempt; to try
  3. to experience
  4. ever; once
  5. to lick
  6. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

嘗：口味之也。从旨尚聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 辨別滋味。通「嚐」。 例：品嘗
  2. 經歷。 例：備嘗艱辛、飽嘗戰禍
  3. 曾經。 例：未嘗、何嘗
  4. 試探、試驗。 例：嘗試

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

How 嘗 was written 字形演變

  1. 嘗 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 嘗 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 嘗 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 嘗 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 嘗 in Clerical script
    Clerical
    隸書
    Han
  6. 嘗 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: 嘗