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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

師

shī
division of 2500 soldiers
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 1
  • radical 巾
  • 10 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
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  • meaning component
  • sound component
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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 𠂤 + 帀 (*tsˤəp) .

師 (OC *sri) may be related to words denoting multitude, abundance, or movement to and fro, such as 詵 (OC *srən), 駪 (OC *srən), 甡 (OC *sriŋ), 莘 (OC *srən), 侁 (OC *sriŋ), 瑟 (OC *srik), 蝨 (OC *srik) and 蟋 (OC *srit).

Starostin derives this word from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *rij (“many”), cognate with 皆 (OC *kriːj, “all”), 偕 (OC *kriːj, “together with”), as well as Tibetan ཁྲི (khri, “ten thousand”) and Burmese ရဲ (rai:, “police”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*rij “many”
  • ideaChinese𠂤 “ancient form of 師 (“troops”)”
  • ideaChinese帀

Related: Tibetan ཁྲི, Burmese ရဲ

Words built on it: 老師

Meanings

character
  1. division of 2500 soldiers
  2. division; a large body of troops composing part of an army
  3. army; troops; armed force
  4. to dispatch troops; to send troops
  5. the masses; populace; general public
  6. A former level of administrative division notionally covering 36,000 households or 1/12 of a province.

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

師：二千五百人爲師。从帀从𠂤。𠂤，四帀，眾意也。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 教授學問、知識的人。 例：教師、老師、恩師
  2. 具有專門技藝的人。 例：醫師、律師、工程師
  3. 對道士或僧尼的尊稱。 例：法師、禪師
  4. 軍隊。 例：出師、會師、班師回朝
  5. 都邑、都城。 例：京師
  6. 榜樣、借鏡。 例：前事不忘，後事之師。

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

How 師 was written 字形演變

  1. 師 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 師 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 師 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 師 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 師 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 師 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: 師