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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

座

zuò
seat (Classifier: 個／个 m)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 广
  • 10 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *zoːls): semantic 广 (“house on cliff”) + phonetic 坐 (OC *zoːlʔ, *zoːls).

Exopassive of 坐 (OC *zoːlʔ, “to sit; to be situated”), literally "that which is sat on" (Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese广 “house built to depend on a cliff”
  • soundChinese坐 “to sit; to take a seat”
    • ideaChinese留 “to stay; to remain”
      • soundChinese卯 “fourth of twelve earthly branches (十二支)”
      • soundChinese丣
      • meaningChinese田 “farmland (Classifier: 塊／块 m c)”
    • ideaChinese土 “earth; soil”

Words built on it: 座位

Meanings

character
  1. seat (Classifier: 個／个 m)
  2. stand; base (Classifier: 個／个 m c)
  3. Classifier for buildings, mountains and similar immovable objects.
  4. room number in a residential building

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 位子、席位。 例：入座、讓座、高朋滿座
  2. 器物的托架。 例：底座、筆座、鐘座　△座子
  3. 星星。 例：獅子座、獵戶座
  4. 量詞。計算有底座或大型物體的單位。 例：一座山、兩座自鳴鐘

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

How 座 was written 字形演變

  1. 座 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 座 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 座 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 座 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 座 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 座