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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

巨

/t͡ɕy⁵¹/
huge; gigantic; enormous
  • Jiajie
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 工
  • 5 strokes

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  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

Jiajie (假借) of 矩 (OC *kʷaʔ, “carpenter's square”), borrowed for 巨 (OC *ɡaʔ, “enormous”). By the small seal script, the character was simplified and the man holding the carpenter's square was removed; however, the hand holding it appears to remain as the コ shape inside the 工.

Shuowen interprets it as a pictogram, however Chen (2021) points out that 矩 is the original shape.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *wa (“large, wide, distant”). Insides Sinitic, 巨 (OC *gwaʔ ?) is possibly related to 迂 (OC *wa, “to enlarge, increase”) and perhaps 況 (OC *hwaŋh, “to increase, increasingly, how much more, moreover”); outsides Sinitic, cognate with Mizo vak (“with force, very hard, much, exceedingly, in large number / quantities, (open mouth) wide”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese匚 “a kind of container”
  • partChinese乛
  • partChinese一 “one”
  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*wa “large, wide, distant”

Related: Mizo vak

Words built on it: 巨大

Meanings

character
  1. huge; gigantic; enormous
  2. a surname
  3. macro-; macro
  4. million; one million; mega-; mega
  5. super; very

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

巨：規巨也。从工，象手持之。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 大。 例：巨款、巨人

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

How 巨 was written 字形演變

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

  • Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
  • 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: 巨