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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

彩

/t͡sʰaɪ̯²¹⁴/
variegated colors; rich and bright colors
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • radical 彡
  • 11 strokes
  • 綵

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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  • sound component
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *sʰɯːʔ): phonetic 采 (OC *sʰɯːʔ) + semantic 彡.

Possibly from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m-tsəw-s/t (“colour; dye”); compare Tibetan ཚོས (tshos, “dye”) (STEDT; Schuessler, 2007).

Alternatively, 色 (OC *s.rək, “colour”) may be a dialectal variant (Baxter, 1992; Baxter and Sagart, 2014).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*m-tsəw-s/t “colour; dye”
  • soundChinese采 “to pick; to pluck; to gather; to collect”
    • componentChinese爪 “claw (of animal, bird); talon; paw; nail”
    • componentChinese果 “fruit”
    • componentChinese木 “tree; woody plant”
  • meaningChinese彡 “hair”

Related: Tibetan ཚོས

Words built on it: 精彩, 色彩, 彩色

Meanings

character
  1. variegated colors; rich and bright colors
  2. literary or artistic grace or talent; variety; gracefulness; brilliance
  3. applause; cheer
  4. blood from a wound
  5. lottery prize; winnings
  6. wager; stake; bet

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

彩：文章也。从彡采聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 顏色、顏料。 例：色彩、水彩、五彩繽紛
  2. 多種顏色的。 例：彩蝶、彩霞、彩衣
  3. 賭博或競賽中的獎品。

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

How 彩 was written 字形演變

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