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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

塞

/saɪ̯⁵⁵/
to stop up; to block up
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 6
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 土
  • 13 strokes

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Origin

Oracle bone script: Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 宀 (“house”) + 工 (“two items”) + 廾 (“two hands”) – stuffing the house with items. Hence, the original version is 𡨄, a character similar but unrelated to 共 but partly related to 展.

Shuowen: Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 𡨄 + 土 (“soil”); the bottom component was added later.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese宀 “a type of deep house with walls on all four sides, a roof, a main hall, and back rooms”
  • ideaChinese𡨄 “to block; to block up; to jam; to plug”
  • ideaChinese工 “labour; work (Classifier: 份 c)”
  • ideaChinese土 “earth; soil”
  • ideaChinese廾 “both hands”

Words built on it: 賽

Meanings

character
  1. to stop up; to block up
  2. to stuff; to cram; to squeeze in
  3. to be blocked; to be jammed
  4. to obstruct; to block
  5. to fill up completely; to become full
  6. to forbid; to suppress; to prohibit

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

塞：隔也。从土从𡨄。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 險要的地方。 例：要塞
  2. 邊境。 例：邊塞、塞外

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

How 塞 was written 字形演變

  1. 塞 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 塞 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 塞 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 塞 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 塞 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: 塞