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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

導

/tɑʊ̯²¹⁴/
to direct; to guide; to lead; to conduct
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • radical 寸
  • 16 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *duːs): phonetic 道 (OC *l'uːʔ, “path”) + semantic 寸 (“hand”) – to lead someone.

Cognate with 道 (OC *l'uːʔ, “road”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese道 “a path or course along which something moves, flows or extends”
    • meaningChinese行 “to walk”
      • componentChinese彳 “to walk slowly”
      • componentChinese亍 “to stop; to stand still”
    • soundChinese首 “head”
    • meaningChinese止 “foot”
  • meaningChinese寸 “Legally defined as the tsun of 3.71475 cm.”

Meanings

character
  1. to direct; to guide; to lead; to conduct

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

導：導，引也。从寸道聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 帶領、指引。 例：引導、導航
  2. 教育、啟發。 例：指導、開導
  3. 傳送。 例：導電、導熱

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

How 導 was written 字形演變

  1. 導 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 導 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: 導