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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

堆

duī
heap; pile; mound
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 5
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 土
  • 11 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *tuːl): semantic 土 (“earth”) + phonetic 隹 (OC *tjul). The original form is 𠂤.

Schuessler (2007) takes its first appearance in Chu Ci as suggestive of foreign origin. Possibly related to:

* Proto-Tai *C̥.doːjᴬ (“mountain”) (whence Thai ดอย (dɔɔi), Saek [script needed] (rɔ:jᴬ¹), Zhuang ndoi)

* Proto-Hmong-Mien *glaɨᴰ (“mountain”), or

* Austroasiatic, e.g. Middle Mon [script needed] (duiw, “hill, hilltop”)

Possibly connected with 屯 (OC *duːn).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese土 “earth; soil”
  • soundChinese隹 “short-tailed bird”

Related: Proto-Tai *C̥.doːjᴬ, Thai ดอย, Zhuang ndoi, Proto-Hmong-Mien *glaɨᴰ

Meanings

character
  1. heap; pile; mound
  2. heap
  3. to pile up; to stack up
  4. Classifier for objects organised in piles: pile; lump; heap; clump; mound
  5. mound (usually in placenames)

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 聚積成高起形狀的東西。 例：土堆、書堆、瓦礫堆
  2. 用手或工具把東西聚積起來。 例：堆土、堆沙、堆雪人　◎
  3. 積聚。 例：堆恨成仇
  4. 量詞。計算堆積物、成群人的單位。 例：一堆土、兩堆人

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

How 堆 was written 字形演變

  1. 堆 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  2. 堆 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 堆