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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

塊

kuài
piece; chunk; lump; part
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 1
  • radical 土
  • 13 strokes

Etymology graph

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

Etymology 1

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *kʰuːls, *kʰruːds): semantic 土 (“earth; dust”) + phonetic 鬼 (OC *kulʔ) – clod of dirt.

Unknown (Schuessler, 2007).

Etymology 2

Jerry Norman reconstructs Common Min *tɔi⁵ based on the coastal Min forms; it is unclear how the Northern Min forms relate to the Coastal Min forms. Possibly from 段 (OC *doːns, “section; segment”); compare 短 (OC *toːnʔ, “short”) > Xiamen Hokkien té (Coblin, n.d.).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese土 “earth; soil”
  • soundChinese鬼 “ghost; apparition; spirit (Classifier: 隻／只)”

Meanings

character
  1. piece; chunk; lump; part
  2. Classifier for piece of something (food, cloth, stone): piece; chunk; slab
  3. Classifier for areas of land: plot; tract; area
  4. Classifier for money: yuan; dollar; buck
  5. a Malaysian ringgit
  6. place

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 結聚成團或固體狀的東西。 例：肉塊、糖塊、冰塊
  2. 一起、一同。 例：等一下，我們一塊兒走。
  3. 量詞

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

How 塊 was written 字形演變

  1. 塊 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 塊 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: 塊