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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

戶

hù
door
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 戶
  • 4 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
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Origin

Pictogram (象形): one-half of 門 (“gate”). The character in its original form is similar to 𠁣.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m/s-k(w)a-j (“mouth; opening; spread; door; face; jaw”). Cognate with Tibetan སྒོ (sgo, “door”). See also Vietnamese cửa, borrowed from a Tibeto-Burman relative of the Chinese term.

;"Hu county"

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese丿 “left-falling stroke, usually read as 撇”
  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*m/s-k(w)a-j “mouth; opening; spread; door; face; jaw”
  • partChinese尸 “a living person who represents the dead person during a rite”

Related: Tibetan སྒོ, Vietnamese cửa

Words built on it: 所, 房

Meanings

character
  1. door
  2. family; household
  3. Classifier for households.
  4. bank account
  5. (historical) Hu (a defunct county in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China) (converted into district and renamed to 鄠邑 in 2016)
  6. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

戶：護也。半門曰戶。象形。凡戶之屬皆从戶。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 一扇門稱為「戶」。亦指房屋的出入口。 例：小心門戶、夜不閉戶
  2. 住家、人家。 例：住戶、用戶、訂戶
  3. 與帳務有關的個人或團體。 例：帳戶、存戶、戶頭
  4. 門第，家族的身分地位。 例：門當戶對
  5. 量詞。計算住家數量的單位。 例：一戶人家、五百戶住家

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

How 戶 was written 字形演變

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