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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

官

guān
government official, public servant
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 7
  • radical 宀
  • 8 strokes

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Origin

Compositionally related to 宮, but approximately analysable as ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 宀 + 𠂤 – multiple rooms under a roof, an official building.

Probably the same word as 倌 (OC *koːn, *kroːns, “servant”) (Schuessler, 2007). See there for more.

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𠂤 “ancient form of 師 (“troops”)”

Words built on it: 管, 官方, 館, 法官, 器官

Meanings

character
  1. government official, public servant
  2. governmental; official
  3. public; communal
  4. organ (part of a body)
  5. father-in-law; husband's father
  6. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

官：史，事君也。从宀从𠂤。𠂤猶眾也。此與師同意。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 在政府機關擔任公職的人。 例：法官、官吏、縣官
  2. 對人的尊稱。 例：客官、看官
  3. 國家的、政府的。 例：官方、官舍、官費
  4. 生物體中負責某種獨立機能的組織。 例：感官、器官、五官
  5. 姓。

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

How 官 was written 字形演變

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