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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

封

fēng
border, boundary
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 5
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 寸
  • 9 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *poŋ, *poŋs): abbreviated phonetic 丰 (OC *pʰoŋ) + semantic 土 (“earth”) + semantic 寸 (“hand”). Compare 邦.

Originally 丰, depicting a tree seedling. Variants that added any combination of 土 (“earth”), 又 (“hand”), 田 (“field”), 丮 (“kneeling person with hands stretched out”) appeared from bronze inscriptions onwards.

Area etymon (Schuessler, 2007). Compare Tibetan ཕུང་པོ (phung po, “heap”), Tibetan སྤུང (spung, “heap”), Lepcha ᰣᰦᰎᰪᰵ (a-pŭŋ, “a heap; a stock”), Mizo [Term?] (puŋᴴ), [Term?] (punᴸ, “increase; assemble”), Mizo vûng (vuuŋᴴ), vûn (vuunᴸ, “swollen”), Mizo vûng (vuuŋᴿ, “heap; mound”), Chepang भुङ्हसा (bhuŋh-, “to be burst or peak of activity (flowering, field work etc.)”). Compare also Khmer ពោង (poong, “protuberances/bumps on an animal's head”), Khmer សំពោង (sɑmpoong, “puffed up; swollen”).

邦 (OC *proːŋ, “country”) may be the same etymon (Wang, 1982, Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese丰 “lush, luxuriant, flourishing”
  • meaningChinese土 “earth; soil”
  • meaningChinese寸 “Legally defined as the tsun of 3.71475 cm.”

Related: Tibetan ཕུང་པོ, Tibetan སྤུང, Lepcha ᰣᰦᰎᰪᰵ, Mizo vûng, Chepang भुङ्हसा, Khmer ពោង, Khmer សំពោង

Words built on it: 幫, 信封

Meanings

character
  1. border, boundary
  2. state, domain, territory
  3. to confer (a title) upon; to enfeoff
  4. to grant (a position or title) to a subordinate
  5. to pile up a mound
  6. to earth up; to cultivate, nurture

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

封：爵諸矦之土也。从之从土从寸，守其制度也。公侯，百里；伯，七十里；子男，五十里。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 古代帝王以土地、爵位、名號授給諸侯或有功的人。 例：分封、封侯
  2. 密合、黏合。 例：密封、封口、封箱　◎
  3. 關閉、禁閉。 例：查封、封閉、封關
  4. 限制。 例：故步自封
  5. 用來包裝東西的套子。 例：信封、公文封
  6. 量詞。計算包裹或裝上封套物件的單位。 例：一封信

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

How 封 was written 字形演變

  1. 封 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 封 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 封 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 封 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 封 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: 封