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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

折

/ʈ͡ʂɤ³⁵/
to break off; to snap; to pluck off
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 手
  • 7 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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Origin

Etymology 1

Originally 㪿, an ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): ⿱屮屮 (“a tree 木 cut in half”) + 斤 (“axe”) – an axe cutting a tree in half.

In the current form, the left side has become 扌 (“hand”).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tset (“to cut off; to sever; to break”).

Etymology 2

Possibly an erroneous form of 提, which is a phonetic loan of 媞 (OC *deː, *deːʔ, *djeʔ).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*tset “to cut off; to sever; to break”
  • ideaChinese𣏄 “a tree <i class="Hani mention" lang="zh">木</i> cut in half”
  • ideaChinese斤 “catty or jin, a traditional unit of weight, equal to 0.5 kilograms”

Words built on it: 打折

Meanings

character
  1. to break off; to snap; to pluck off
  2. to bend; to twist
  3. to turn back; to change direction
  4. to lose; to suffer the loss of
  5. to die (young)
  6. to convert into; to amount to

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 斷。 例：這根棍子已經折了！
  2. 虧損。 例：折本、折錢

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

How 折 was written 字形演變

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