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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

戰

zhàn
to fight a battle; to go to war
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • radical 戈
  • 16 strokes
  • 𢧐

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *tjans): phonetic 單 (OC *taːn, *djan, *djanʔ, *djans) + semantic 戈 (“halberd”) – battling with a halberd.

Benedict (1972) thinks it a cognate to Tibetan རལ་གྲི (ral gri, “sword”), Mizo râl (“enemy”), both from Proto-Tibeto-Burman *g-raːl ~ *g-ran ~ *ray (“enemy, quarrel, strife, fight, war, sword”), yet Schuessler (2007) thinks it unlikely that Old Chinese *t- corresponds to Tibeto-Burman *r-.

Instead he proposes that "war, battle" is semantically extended from "tremble, fear" and so 戰 (OC *tjans) is cognate with 憚 (OC *daːns) (ibid.); STEDT in turn derives them both from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *dar ~ d(u/i)r (“tremble, shiver”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*dar ~ d(u/i)r “to shiver, to tremble”
  • soundChinese單 “single; individual; solitary”
  • meaningChinese戈 “dagger-axe (an ancient Chinese weapon similar to a halberd)”

Meanings

character
  1. to fight a battle; to go to war
  2. war; battle; fight
  3. to tremble; to shiver
  4. a surname, Zhan

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

戰：鬬也。从戈單聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 打仗、爭鬥。 例：作戰、戰鬥、淝水之戰
  2. 與戰爭有關的。 例：戰法、戰果、戰機
  3. 害怕、發抖。通「顫」。 例：膽戰心驚
  4. 姓。

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

How 戰 was written 字形演變

  1. 戰 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 戰 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 戰 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 戰 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 戰 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 戰