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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

富

fù
abundant; ample
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 宀
  • 12 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *pɯɡs): semantic 宀 + phonetic 畐 (OC *pʰrɯɡ, *bɯɡ).

Bodman (1980) compares it to Tibetan ཕྱུག (phyug, “rich; wealthy”), ཕྱུགས (phyugs, “all beasts that can be domesticated or subjugated by man; cattle”), but the vowels do not match with Chinese (Schuessler, 2007).

Sagart (1999) relates it to 寶 (OC *puːʔ), but see there for more. In later work, Sagart (2011b, 2017d) connects it to Proto-Tibeto-Burman *pʷak (“pig”), comparing the semantic development from “pig” to “rich” to Latin pecunia (“money”), which is derived from Latin pecu (“cattle; domestic animals”), and tentatively reconstructs Proto-Sino-Tibetan *C.pək (“pig”). However, the Tibeto-Burman word for “pig” is usually compared to 豝 (OC *praː, “sow”).

Cognate with 福 (OC *pɯɡ, “blessing”) (Wang, 1982; Schuessler, 2007).

;"Fu county"

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*C-pək “pig”
  • meaningChinese宀 “a type of deep house with walls on all four sides, a roof, a main hall, and back rooms”
  • soundChinese畐 “full, filled”

Related: Tibetan ཕྱུག, Proto-Tibeto-Burman *pʷak, Latin pecunia, Latin pecu

Meanings

character
  1. abundant; ample
  2. rich; wealthy
  3. wealth
  4. to make rich; to make wealthy
  5. a surname, Fu
  6. Fu County, Fuxian (a county of Yan'an, Shaanxi, China)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

富：備也。一曰厚也。从宀畐聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 財物充裕、充足的。與「貧」相對。 例：富足、富有、富裕
  2. 包容很多的。 例：富麗堂皇、文富辭豐
  3. 財產、財物。 例：財富
  4. 使豐裕。 例：富國強兵
  5. 姓。

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

How 富 was written 字形演變

  1. 富 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 富 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 富 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 富 in Clerical script
    Clerical
    隸書
    Han
  5. 富 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 富