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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

嘴

zuǐ
mouth (especially the part of the face associated with the mouth) (Classifier: 張／张 m)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 口
  • 16 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
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  • meaning component
  • sound component
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ʔseʔ): semantic 口 + phonetic 觜 (OC *ʔse, *ʔse, *ʔseʔ).

Related to 觜 (OC *ʔse, *ʔse, *ʔseʔ, “horn-like hair on the owl-head; beak of a bird; mouth”).

Further etymology is unknown. Schuessler (2007) relates it to Tibetan མཚུལ་པ (mtshul pa, “lower part of the face; muzzle; beak”), which is from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m-ts(j)ul (“lip; beak”) (STEDT).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*m-ts(j)ul “lip; beak”
  • meaningChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
  • soundChinese觜 “Turtle Beak, one of the twenty-eight lunar mansions of Chinese astronomy”

Related: Tibetan མཚུལ་པ

Words built on it: 嘴巴

Meanings

character
  1. mouth (especially the part of the face associated with the mouth) (Classifier: 張／张 m)
  2. mouth-like object; beak; nozzle; spout (of a teapot, etc.)
  3. food
  4. utterance; spoken words; speech
  5. to kiss
  6. beak

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 本指鳥口，後泛指人、動物的口。 例：張嘴、閉嘴、滿嘴蛀牙　◎
  2. 器物上形狀或功能像嘴的部位。 例：瓶嘴、茶壺嘴、煙嘴
  3. 喻說話。 例：貧嘴、多嘴、插嘴

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

How 嘴 was written 字形演變

  1. 嘴 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 嘴 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 嘴