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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

局

/t͡ɕy³⁵/
bent; crooked
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 6
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 尸
  • 7 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ɡoɡ): semantic 尸 + phonetic 句 (OC *koː, *koːs, *kos, *ɡo).

Folk etymology found in some dictionaries mistakes it for a representation of a deceased person's limbs being bent and buried.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *N-kəwk.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • derivedProto-Sino-Tibetan*kəwk
  • meaningChinese尸 “a living person who represents the dead person during a rite”
  • soundChinese句 “sentence; phrase”
    • meaningChinese丩 “to connect or graft a vine”
    • soundChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”

Words built on it: 局面

Meanings

character
  1. bent; crooked
  2. to bend
  3. to restrict; to limit
  4. to force; to coerce
  5. narrow; restricted
  6. near; close

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

局：促也。从口在尺下，復局之。一曰博，所以行棊。象形。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 行政機關或商店的名稱。 例：郵局、書局、教育局
  2. 形勢、情況。 例：局勢、顧全大局、打破僵局
  3. 聚會。 例：飯局、牌局、賭局
  4. 圈套、陷阱。 例：騙局
  5. 拘束、限制。通「拘」。 例：局限、局促、局囿
  6. 部分。 例：局部麻醉

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

How 局 was written 字形演變

  1. 局 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 局 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 局 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: 局