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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

容

róng
to hold; to contain
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 宀
  • 10 strokes
  • 頌

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *loŋ): semantic 宀 + phonetic 公 (OC *kloːŋ) – to hold; to contain.

容 has also largely supplanted 頌 (OC *sɢloŋs, *loŋ) for the sense of “appearance”.

; to hold, to contain

; facial appearance

; “ronna-”

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公 “public; communal”

Words built on it: 容易, 形容, 內容

Meanings

character
  1. to hold; to contain
  2. to tolerate; to stand
  3. to allow; to permit
  4. perhaps; maybe
  5. facial appearance; looks
  6. bearing; posture

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

容：盛也。从宀、谷。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 包含、收納。 例：容納、容身之所、無地自容
  2. 寬待、原諒。 例：包容、見容、寬容
  3. 面貌。 例：儀容、面容、容貌
  4. 修飾、妝扮。 例：女為悅己者容
  5. 允、可。 例：容許、不容置喙
  6. 或許、也許。 例：容或有之

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

How 容 was written 字形演變

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