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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

增

zēng
to increase; to expand; to gain; to add
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 5
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 土
  • 15 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ʔsɯːŋ, *ʔsɯːŋs): semantic 土 (“earth”) + phonetic 曾 (OC *ʔsɯːŋ, *zɯːŋ) – things grow in the earth, to build from earth.

The Baxter and Sagart (2014) reconstruction of this word is *s-tˤəŋ, suggesting the word is derived from 登 (OC *tˤəŋ, “to go up”) by *s- prefixing.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese土 “earth; soil”
  • soundChinese曾 “already; ever; once (in the past); previously”

Words built on it: 增加

Meanings

character
  1. to increase; to expand; to gain; to add
  2. a surname, Zeng
  3. 13th tetragram of the Taixuanjing; "expansion; growth" (𝌒)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

增：益也。从土曾聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 加多、添加。與「減」相對。 例：倍增、遞增、有增無減

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

How 增 was written 字形演變

  1. 增 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 增 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 增 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 增 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 增 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 增