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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

客

kè
guest; visitor
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • radical 宀
  • 9 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *kʰraːɡ): semantic 宀 (“roof”) + phonetic 各 (OC *klaːɡ) – a guest.

Probably belongs to the word family of 格 (OC *klaːɡ, *kraːɡ, “to go, to come”). Schuessler (2007) cites Tibetan དགྲ (dgra, “enemy”) as a possible cognate.

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各 “each; every (determiner)”
    • ideaChinese夂 “to approach from behind”
    • ideaChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”

Related: Tibetan དགྲ

Words built on it: 客人, 旅客, 乘客

Meanings

character
  1. guest; visitor
  2. customer; client; consumer (Classifier: 個／个 c; 位 c)
  3. to treat with guest etiquette; to receive friendly
  4. minor; less major; less important
  5. Agent suffix, indicating “one that engages in ...”.
  6. one who sponges on a wealthy family; hanger-on; sponger

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

客：寄也。从宀各聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 來賓。與「主」相對。 例：賓客、貴客
  2. 做生意、從事買賣等人對顧主的稱呼。 例：顧客、乘客、客滿
  3. 泛稱從事某種活動或具有某類特長的人。 例：掮客、說客、騷人墨客
  4. 古代稱寄食貴族豪門的人。 例：門客、食客
  5. 寄居、旅居。 例：客居、客旅
  6. 寄旅於外的人。 例：遊客、旅人過客

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

How 客 was written 字形演變

  1. 客 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 客 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 客 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 客 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 客 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: 客