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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

字

zì
letter; symbol; character, especially a Chinese character (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 c)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 1
  • radical 子
  • 6 strokes

Etymology graph

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

The character 字 is a phono-semantic compound. It combines the semantic component 宀, representing a roof or a type of deep house with walls, and the phonetic component 子, meaning child or offspring. While the original sense of "to become pregnant, to give birth to, to nurture, or to love" has essentially become obsolete, the current sense of "letter" or "character" is either from a different root or a derivation from the sense "to produce, to generate."

It was inherited from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tsa ~ za, meaning "child; to give birth; to take care; to be kind." This root is related to the reconstructed form *子 (OC *ʔslɯʔ, "child, son"). The character is cognate with the Tibetan words ཚ་བོ (nephew), ཚ་རུས (descendant), བཙའ (to give birth to; to guard), and མཛའ (kind, peaceful, friendly), as well as the Burmese စာ (writing, letter).

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*tsa ~ za “child; to give birth; to take care; to be kind”
  • meaningChinese宀 “a type of deep house with walls on all four sides, a roof, a main hall, and back rooms”
  • soundChinese子 “child; offspring; descendant”

Related: Tibetan ཚ་བོ, Tibetan ཚ་རུས, Tibetan བཙའ, Tibetan མཛའ, Burmese စာ

Words built on it: 名字, 文字, 字典, 字母

Wiktionary etymology text

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *zlɯs): semantic 宀 (“roof”) + phonetic 子 (OC *ʔslɯʔ, “child”).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tsa ~ za (“child; to give birth; to take care; to be kind”). Related to:

* 子 (OC *ʔslɯʔ, “child, son”) (also its phonetic component)

* 慈 (OC *zɯ, “to be kind, loving”)

* 滋 (OC *ʔsɯ, “to nourish, to grow”)

* 詞 (OC *ljɯ, “word, term”)

* 辭 (OC *ljɯ, “word, from testimony”)

Original sense (1): “to become pregnant, to give birth to, to nurture, to love” has essentially become obsolete. The sense (2) “letter, character” is either from a different root or a derivation from the sense “to produce, to generate”.

Cognate with Tibetan ཚ་བོ (tsha bo, “nephew”), Tibetan ཚ་རུས (tsha rus, “descendant”), Tibetan བཙའ (btsa', “to give birth to; to guard”), Tibetan མཛའ (mdza', “kind, peaceful, friendly”) (Quan, 1996), Burmese စာ (ca, “writing, letter”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Meanings

character
  1. letter; symbol; character, especially a Chinese character (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 c)
  2. word; term; wording; diction
  3. word (natural unit of data)
  4. handwriting; writing
  5. courtesy name; Chinese-style name (a name traditionally given to Chinese males at the age of 20 and females at the age of 15)
  6. to style; to give someone a courtesy name

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

字：乳也。从子在宀下，子亦聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 記錄語言的符號。 例：文字、單字、篆字
  2. 發出的字音。 例：咬字、字正腔圓
  3. 本名以外另取的別號。 例：唐朝詩人王維，字摩詰。
  4. 女子許嫁。 例：待字閨中

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

How 字 was written 字形演變

  1. 字 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 字 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  3. 字 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 字 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

  • etymagent (local gemma4:26b) — Generated
  • 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: 字