Chinese

套

tào
to cover with; to encase; to put on (a sweater, etc.)
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 大
  • 10 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 大 (“large”) + 長 (“long”) – long, with some reference to hair. Originally written as 𡘷.

It was later borrowed for the “cover; cover with, put on (clothes); link” sense and has now lost its original meaning. It is also used as a classifier for a suit of clothes or a group of things, hence something that can be put on or a group of linked/interconnected things.

Cognate with 韜 (OC *l̥ʰuː); probably cognate with 㧺 and 錔 (OC *tʰuːb).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese大 “of great size; big; large; huge”
  • ideaChinese長 “long (of distance)”

Words built on it: 外套, 手套

Sources