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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

定

dìng
stable; steady; fixed
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • radical 宀
  • 8 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *teːŋs, *deːŋs): semantic 宀 + phonetic 正 (OC *tjeŋ, *tjeŋs)

Possibly related to Burmese တည် (tany, “to lie in repose; to build, form, establish”) (Luce, 1981).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese宀 “a type of deep house with walls on all four sides, a roof, a main hall, and back rooms”
  • soundChinese正 “straight; upright in proper position; middle”
    • soundChinese丁 “the fourth of the ten heavenly stems”
    • meaningChinese止 “foot”

Related: Burmese တည်

Words built on it: 一定, 制定, 肯定, 不一定, 定期, 固定, 決定, 否定, 指定, 特定

Meanings

character
  1. stable; steady; fixed
  2. to fix; to stabilise
  3. to put down; to suppress
  4. to establish; to prepare the ground for
  5. to decide; to resolve
  6. to determine; to settle

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

定：安也。从宀从正。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 確切的、不改變的。 例：定理、定義、定律
  2. 不動的。 例：家無定產
  3. 規範的。 例：定量、定時、定期
  4. 使其不動。 例：定住、固定
  5. 使平靜、使穩固。 例：安定、平定
  6. 確立。 例：決定、裁定

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

How 定 was written 字形演變

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